prends garde à toi
by vis-et-decus
Summary: Azula x Ty Lee. a series of drabbles, featuring several themes. requests encouraged. /update: 7 Feb - poetry i/
1. microfics i

Hallo everyone. Welcome to my awful potpourri of drabbles featuring the Princess and the circus freak.

If I take requests (and I do, frequently), here are a few words to the wise: I cannot guarantee that I will get to your request and I cannot guarantee that you will like it. D: I am welcome to mature themes. I have a very abusive attitude towards semicolons and dashes. Run-on sentences are my best friend. Avatar is not mine but all the crack is. Try the veal.

Oh, if you're wondering about the title, it's from the famous 'Habanera' from Carmen. Carmen speaks the line "Si je t'aime, prends garde à toi!" which to my knowledge, roughly translates to "If I love you, beware/watch out!"

* * *

**Theme I: Microfics** -- Write ten types of genres in ten words or less.

**AU**

"My Lady."  
"My Lord."

**First Time**

A gasp; a door slamming.  
"Zuko should learn to knock."

**Deathfic**

Azula is still warm, but Ty Lee's fire is gone.

**Crackfic**

Azula's hand rested disbelievingly on Ty Lee's stomach.  
"It's yours."

**Angst!**

Ty Lee's heart beat what her mouth wouldn't say: _Stay._

**Fluff**

The perfect place for cold feet in winter: Azula's calves.

**PWP**

Azula is always on top, even when she's not.

**Badfic**

"… who is this 'Sokka'?"

(Sorry, Sokka fans. I couldn't resist.)

**Kidfic**

Ty Lee had candy. Soon, Azula had candy.

**Established Relationship**

The card's always the same. "Happy birthday, _sweet sugar cakes._"


	2. lyriclets i

some lyriclets, taken from requests on LJ. hmm... I think this week I might try out "a night at the movies." prompts are fully encouraged; I'll start off with 'The Prestige' (to be posted soon). be sure to read the warning/disclaimer in "microfics i," plz.

* * *

_you were my sun, you were my earth  
you didn't know all the ways I loved you_  
-- Cry Me A River, J Timberlake

Far in the distance, there's a point where the sun touches the earth. It's a point Azula cannot see; here, it only touches water -- Azula thought she'd gained some semblance of freedom when they allowed her out of her cell, only to find out that she's a prisoner all the same. She's stuck on an island, ocean on all sides, no sight or sign of mainland anywhere.

So. Land is a thousand miles away (or might as well be, for all it's worth), as is any chance for escape and freedom, as is the nation she was supposed to rule, as is everything that is comfortable and familiar to her.

As is Ty Lee.

Azula sits by the water's edge. If there's any salt on her face when she thinks about the acrobat, surely it's from the ocean spray.

***

_I was on to every play.  
I just wanted you.  
_-- Shadowboxer, Fiona Apple

Azula watches the boys when she is seven. They are physical, often abusive with each other. They are competitive, tough, and vulgar. The best compliments they give are backhanded, the way they show affection is with a hard push.

Azula watches the boys when she is fourteen. Their little games are much different now. The boys' words are saccharine; Azula thinks it's a waste of would-be solid Fire Nation spines the way they bend before Ty Lee. She doesn't know how the game has changed, or why, but she can feel the weight of Ty Lee's sly gaze on her whenever she shifts those golden eyes away in disgust.

Azula makes it a point to shove Ty Lee down into the sand after their kuai ball match.

***

_As the silence is growing between us  
Seems both you and I know  
The words unspoken  
The questions hanging in the air now  
I can't see how we're getting anywhere_  
-- I Can't Explain, K-Otic

_Ty Lee,_ Azula thinks to herself with something akin to irritated affection, _is a wondrous bottomless pit of _noise.

It's true. Along with her endless reserves of energy and ability to manipulate her body into nearly every position imaginable (and some that aren't), Ty Lee is a constant source of sound. If it's not some off-the-wall comment or random speculation, it's a joke or story or memory or observation that fills the air, more than enough chatter to make up for Mai's bored silence and Azula's scheming quiet. Mai once noted that Ty Lee could out-babble all the brooks in the Water Kingdom; Azula retorted Ty Lee could out-babble all the brooks in all four kingdoms combined.

Nothing changes when Azula leans over Ty Lee's sleeping roll and unsheathes that pointed smile of hers. Noise -- moans and sighs and whimpers and groans and grinding. Azula never pays any attention to the words themselves, but she always takes note of the tone: lazy and satiated, energetic and exuberant, soft and almost shy, high and demanding, delighted, contemplative, peaceful -- she's heard it all.

But she's never heard what fills the tent now: silence.

"Ty Lee." Azula finally says, testing the sharp syllables of the other girl's name, unused to the lack of white noise. Ty Lee turns her head to acknowledge the princess, but her eyes are flat and the air is heavy with something Azula neither wants to name nor consider. She turns those amber eyes of hers away in dismissal; it is the first time she can recall (_first time ever?_) she's broken a look between them.

That silence will be very similar to the one between Ty Lee and Azula when the Princess stares Mai down and the water boils and hisses beneath them.

***

_I've fallen down, so [hurry]  
I think I'm broken far beyond repair  
It was me that let you get away  
And now it is my cross to bear  
All these years go by  
And still I wish our fates they would collide  
Hear my whispered calling  
And come save me, love  
And make me feel alive  
Make me feel alive  
Open up my eyes  
Make me feel alive_

-- Alive, Pollicer

The Fire Nation palace has an extensive library, which is no fantastic secret. What _is_ impressive is the sheer number of writings stuffed into the place; so many volumes and scrolls and texts in one room that it seems far larger on the inside than then outside -- which is no small feat when it comes to the royal residence.

Azula would sometimes frequent the place as a child, lingering over books about strategy and notes describing ancient battles. Ty Lee would try to get her interested in other things more suitable for her age, like fairy-tales, and would often read aloud to the Princess: _All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost..._

The Princess' cat-gold eyes remained fixated on the text before her, refusing to meet Ty Lee's face.

And now, all these lonely years later, that face is beginning to slip away from her. She knows precisely who to blame.

"I have a proposal for you, brother," she says during one of Zuko's weekly visits. The Fire Lord's brows raise in surprise; he can count the number of times she's spoken to him since their last battle on a closed fist. "You set me free."

Zuko knows there is always more to Azula's words than meets the ear. "And?"

"And that's that." The Princess leans her head back against the wall, eyes slowly sliding shut. It is difficult for Zuko to see anything with her gaze hidden from him. The Fire Lord is about to dismiss her words as preposterous and deny her so-called proposal, but Azula's low whisper splits the silence: and Zuko is not sure whether it is addressed to him, or herself, or someone who is absent.

"Not all who wander are lost."

What perturbs Zuko the most about this is that her voice sounds strangely similar to Ty Lee's.

Azula walks now, her back to the palace with its limitless texts, to her Fire Lord brother and his wife, to the nation she loved and served with every fiber of her being. She knows she is but a dead woman walking, alive only in name -- she is no more a threat to anyone than the bone-dry pages of the most ancient books in the library, the ones that threatened to crumble to dust if but touched wrong.

She won't truly be alive until she finds her heart again. _Home is where the heart is,_ Ty Lee had once read to her.

Azula is a long way from home.

***

_But I don't care what they say  
I'm in love with you  
They try to pull me away  
But they don't know the truth  
My heart's crippled by the vein  
That I keep on closing  
You cut me open and I  
Keep bleeding  
Keep, keep __bleeding love_  
-- Bleeding Love, Leona Lewis

Though one would never have assumed it from her later grace and skill, Ty Lee was an awkward adolescent. Caught in the twilight between girl and woman, she was all leg and arm with large feet that more resembled turtleducks' paddles and hands that had not yet started to grow past their childish length regardless of the strength they held.

Azula, of course, was evenly-proportioned and even more elegant in those years of hormones and changes. Was she ever anything but?

Ty Lee's gangly limbs don't deter Azula from slipping into the bed Ty Lee is resting in during one of her several visits to the palace. The Princess might rumble menacingly as a stray elbow or misplaced heel strikes her (_Ty Lee thinks the thunderous rumble Azula assumes her voice resembles is more like a high mewl and giggles to herself; Azula isn't _completely _immune_ _from puberty_) but she doesn't move. Ty Lee knows there is a Thing between them that wasn't before: it lies in the few fractions of a second that Azula allows her gaze to linger on Ty Lee before moving her eyes to other things; it is in the air between them like a mist that only they are privy to; it is lightning replacing fire -- sharp, sudden, blinding, fearsome, _different_.

Ty Lee knows enough about court life to know about Things and Differences. Because Azula is a Princess, their Thing might be overlooked. And _because_ Azula is a Princess, their Thing might be made into a rumor: a wild, wicked being that once brought to life, could never seem to be fully vanquished; it capered in the shadows and gibbered just behind everyone's ears, and it grew a thousandfold if it involved a Thing that was Different.

"You shouldn't be here." Ty Lee whispers into the darkness. "They might find out." Her voice hisses into the pillow; she recalls Princess Ursa's words of warning all too well: _The palace is a small place, Ty Lee. A sparrowmouse cannot sneeze without every catfalcon saying Agni Bless You._

Azula's hand is resting against Ty Lee's hip. It's a half-embrace, but one that feels more natural to Ty Lee than the furtive glances she's just begun to notice that boys are sneaking at her.

"I don't care." the Princess says, and it is far different from Azula's dismissive "I don't care" when something displeases her or Mai's dry "I don't care" at just about everything. Ty Lee knows it is the Thing speaking for Azula, through Azula. She knows it is Different.

She doesn't care, either.

Ty Lee lets her eyes close and shakes off the feeling that Azula is trying to say something else, that she has used those three words as substitutes for three other words that would define their Thing that is Different. Her hand finds Azula's, still against her hip, and she laces their fingers together. And there in the dark she lets their Thing take its nourishment from their quiet breathing and tentative touch; at long last when they finally both fall asleep, their hearts strike together as one strong, solid beat.


	3. at the movies i

these were surprisingly hard to write! I have no idea why! I will stop using exclamation points now! there's no commonality linking these all together; for one I expanded on a quote (the first story), for another the theme (#2), another an actual scene (#3) and the last the spirit of the movie (#4). I've left the titles at the end if you'd like to try and guess the movies I've written about while reading. enjoy.

* * *

"But what about the cost?"

This is Ty Lee's concession. This, she will take.

It has been eons wrapped up in hours since Zuko lost his temper and stormed from the room, leaving Mai to handle the wretched girl in pink before her now. Eons in hours of keeping her voice low and level like the calm summer seas, of gently persuading Ty Lee that her previous outburst and current defiance is unwarranted: but Mai silently, secretly knows she would have reacted the same way had the physicians spoke about Zuko in such a manner.

The physicians weren't going to _kill_ Azula, or steal a part of her away, was what she'd explained to Ty Lee. They were going to _fix_ her. It was just that-- there always seemed to be _two_ Azulas (_and you know what I mean, Ty Lee._) Remember? The one who, when she was just with us, seemed a little softer -- just a little? The one who waited for me when my basilisk-lizard fell -- she didn't help or even offer to help, but she didn't snarl either. She just waited. Or the Azula who would always start the fire before the stars came out because she knew you got cold once night fell. That Azula? She's going to be that Azula from now on and not the other one, the one who--

An abrupt confession from the girl in pink:

"The one who didn't meant it when she said she loved me?"

A long, slow blink from Mai that was the equivalent of any other person falling out of their chair in utter surprise.

"She only said it once in awhile, and never while you were around. But some days it was true. And other days, it… wasn't."

Ty Lee's head is hanging like a wilted flower. Mai sits and waits -- this means that either Ty Lee will accept the treatment plan or she won't. She can see Ty Lee's shoulders tighten beneath her shirt; she knows the other girl's fingernails are practically drawing blood from where they're digging into her palms. She steels her reserve; prepares herself for anger and raised voices and hysterics.

And she is completely unprepared for the slow, silent tears that roll down Ty Lee's cheeks when the other girl finally looks up.

"But what about the cost?"

"Don't worry about the price. You know Zuko will spare no expense in treating his sister." Mai rises, all too glad to take this as Ty Lee's tacit approval -- though there is a small sense of guilt in her subtle twisting of Ty Lee's words. A fragment of a memory flashes through her mind: sunlight catching one of her raised blades, the Princess' anger channeled into action, the blur of Ty Lee's fingers…

… and the guilt is gone as if it had never been.

Mai turns her back and exits the room, heading for the Fire Lord's study. She doesn't see Ty Lee sink forward as if she has lost her spine, lost her support, lost everything she ever held dear. She doesn't see Ty Lee's forehead come to rest on the table, tears coming in an uninterrupted flow, salt against her nose and mouth. She doesn't see Ty Lee's lips move in a broken plea that will go unheard and will not matter from this point on.

"But what about the _cost?_"

*** #2

Azula hates admitting when someone else is right -- it's right up there with weakness and failure and her brother -- and so she doesn't.

She doesn't acknowledge that Ty Lee was right. She doesn't say anything about the matter, especially not to the girl who had first brought her attention to it. Her wolfgold eyes are still deadly-sharp, but the fingernail that runs up Ty Lee's spine after the sun disappears is far sharper and carries the hint of something infinitely deadlier. Azula is particularly slow in carving out her victory, drawing out every last hitch of the other girl's breath and riding the crescendo of Ty Lee's surrender until she is a spent, pliant thing in the Princess' arms. It is one of the finer triumphs Azula has orchestrated.

And long, long after Ty Lee's breathing has evened out into the pattern indicative of exhausted slumber, does Azula sneak her secret out to contemplate it: Ty Lee was right.

_The jealousy will drive you mad._

She is not Ty Lee's first and she does not know who was: professionless, faceless, nameless. Even Azula's best techniques won't slip Ty Lee's tongue; the acrobat fears that Azula speaks in half-truths when hinting pointedly that she will find this certain individual and _introduce_ herself.

There is no 'half' about this truth.

She wonders what his name was, what he looked like. She wonders if it was his words or gifts or body that caught Ty Lee's eye and she wonders what was special enough about him to convince Ty Lee to stay. She wonders if he took his time or if he was careless, even flippant -- if he sneered about it later to his friends and pounded on his chest, calling her _easy_ or _used_ or _spent_. Had the words started to form on anyone else's lips in regards to Ty Lee, the Princess would have ensured they had no lips left: but here in the silent confidence of her own mind, she can unsheathe those words and examine them carefully. _Spent_. Was she?

_The jealousy will drive you mad._

She wonders if Ty Lee thinks about him now, her memory sneaking off to a private place when she has a spare moment. She wonders what Ty Lee remembers about him: his eyes or his smile, his weight or his warmth. She wonders if sometimes Ty Lee imagines a different body at her side: one that is larger than Azula's, the skin rougher, the shoulders broader. She wonders at this shadow that steals between her and Ty Lee night after night, this cancer dancing mad beneath her skin: and if she could, she would turn her firebending inward and _burnburnburn_ until every little doubt and every nagging fear melted beyond oblivion.

_The jealousy will drive you--_

She wonders who it was that warmed Ty Lee's bed before her.

And when she spends her nights in the institution long after the last Agni Kai, she has plenty of time to wonder who it is that warms Ty Lee's bed after her.

*** #3

"They tell me your boy…"

Azula stops.

"… squealed like a waterbender when they strung him from the rafters."

_There was a _thing_ in her chair. A child-thing, it seemed, scruffy and sniveling and wretched and did Ty Lee absolutely have to go to the filthiest mudhole in the worst part of town to pick up her strays? It -- he -- was planted firmly atop one of their best cushions, watching her with the wide, curious eyes of a creature too young to know it is in imminent danger. And before Azula can roar her defiance Ty Lee appears, speaking cheerfully before the other woman can open her mouth: "Surely the general of the Phoenix Legions can handle one adopted son?"_

"And your wife--"

_The smell of fire lilies permeates the air; Azula wrinkles her nose and makes a half-hearted attempt to stop an oncoming sneeze. It works -- partially -- and an odd snort that resembles something a birthing ostrich-horse would make leaves her throat. No one notices, thankfully: all faces are turned away from her, toward the other end of the aisle. Azula shifts her weight, her eyes still focused on the ground -- she doesn't want to see. She doesn't want to look up and not see Ty Lee there, she doesn't want to risk shattering the moment and awakening to some cold reality where the girl who loves pink who is now in white does not exist._

_But when Azula finally looks up, the soft eyes that meet her own are real. And if she is dreaming, Azula sends up a silent prayer that she dies before she ever wakes._

"--moaned like a whore--"

_Ty Lee gasping, grabbing, arching up; her fingernails are anchored into the smooth plain of Azula's back and when Azula views the welts when the sun rises, she will treat them as she would any other fiercely-earned battle scar: with pride, and no small amount of conceit. But this is not how she touches Ty Lee now. They are well past the first night of their nuptials so Azula is not delicate -- no, she's not delicate, but she's _reverent_: she's not soothing a trembling virgin but worshipping a deity, every caress a prayer and every kiss a genuflection. Though Azula will brag about anything and everything else she does not speak of this; this is sacred, this is _theirs.

_There is nothing more beautiful to her than the broken syllables of her name spilling from between Ty Lee's lips. Sweeter than emperor or country or victory -- only here, holding her goddess in her arms, is she free to believe such sacrilege._

"--when they ravaged her again and again…"

_Azula's heart is heavier than the armor she's lacing up, and heavier than that is the gaze she knows is on her back: the petulant, pleading look that Ty Lee is giving her from across the room, even as she obediently packs Azula's saddlebag with the few essentials she cannot do without -- dried food. A canteen. An extra set of clothes. The war declaration from the Fire Emperor. Two stone figurines that Azula has never told her the meaning of, but brings with her everywhere she goes._

_How many wars? Ty Lee finally whispers, but to Azula it feels like a shriek. Whisper or shriek, it is an accusation through and through. How many wars is enough? When will it end?_

_Azula knows she is asking, When will I see you again?_

_The general goes to her wife and though she can kiss away the pleading and the curses, she can't stop the tears. It hurts her more than any wound she's suffered on the battlefield._

_One more war, Ty Lee, and then it is over._

"… and again."

Azula releases a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She turns to face Zuko: there is something too-eager, almost desperate on his face -- he _wants_ her to lash out, lose the collected ice that's become part of her legend. He wants her to scream and launch herself at him, seek out her vengeance before these thousands of witnesses. For an iota of a moment, she almost pities him. Almost.

Azula knows if she attacks him, she will lose the attempt, lose the crowd -- lose her life. Lose her chance at wrapping her hands around Zuko's throat and seeing the light slowly fade from those unfocused, frantic eyes.

One more war, and then it is over.

"The time for honoring yourself will soon be at an end." Her throat constricts around the last word, but to her surprise it leaves with no difficulty: "Majesty." It is the slight inclination of her head in his direction that she has trouble with, but lower her head does -- and it is a scornful gesture, more fit to be accompanied by taunts and sneers than the silence it comes with. It is a mockery of respect, an honorable action twisted into a scathing challenge.

And when she turns on her heel and strides toward the Colosseum exit, Zuko cannot shake the slow, silent dread that comes with the knowledge -- though he does not know how or why or when -- that Azula is walking over his grave.

*** #4

_  
He's ill-tempered. He's mean-spirited. He's vicious.  
_  
To put it succinctly, the royal stablemaster was not having a good day.

He'd received a creature from the Earth Kingdom -- an ostrich-horse -- that he assumed was being placed in the royal stables because it was a worthy beast of burden or at the very least, an animal unique enough for its station. It did have one-of-a-kind pigmentation: the beast's feathers were a silken-black with flashes of crimson along its flanks and belly, and its eyes were the molten gold hue only found on the royal crest. A pretty animal, but one hardly worth the royal stables… or so he'd thought. He had come to figure out very quickly that it was here not for its exotic status or proud workmanship, but for the simple fact that it could _breathe fire_.

It had terrified the komodo-rhinos into a stampede. It had driven off every last one of his stablehands with snaps from its serrated beak and added insult to injury with great belches of flame, well warming the rear of more than one fleeing boy. It had scratched up the interior of its stall and broken its way out into the pasture; when it had tired of torturing the cow hippos it turned its attention to clawing at the well-kept grounds, obviously intent on wreaking as much havoc as it could before the stablemaster gave up and turned it over to the royal cook. Right now he was not even terribly concerned with harnessing the animal and breaking it in as he was saving his pride and, if the beast came too close, his life.

And now, some random girl dressed in _pink_ had come along, saying she wanted to help out at the stables. Something about volunteering or community service, perhaps the Academy required these sorts of things over the summer…

"Listen, young lady, I'd love to help but I'm busy trying to contain a very dangerous creature right now. That ostrich-horse up there has been right mean and I've got to contain him, and it'd be best if you could drop by at a later--"

"Oh!" The girl's obvious squeal of delight startled the stablemaster into silence. She'd noticed the great black ostrich-horse in the pasture: and with a sinking feeling, the stablemaster saw that the beast had noticed her as well. It had cocked its head to the side and was staring at her with a large unblinking eye. The stablemaster felt a hint of uncertainty then, something he'd never experienced around his animals: the sharp intelligence in its gaze was far above that of any simple beast of burden; though it worried him to think so, he felt the beast could reason just as well -- if not better -- than most humans.

Before he could warn her or shout or make half a discernable noise, the girl had leapt over the fence and was making her way toward the creature, who pinned its ears back and puffed up its feathers at her approach. The stablemaster had visions of some noble family somewhere plotting his death upon the sight of their daughter's charred corpse being delivered to their home--

"Oh, but you're so _beautiful!_" The girl was either too dim-witted to read body language or too focused to care and had thrust her hands into the ostrich-horse's thick chest feathers; interestingly enough, the animal did not remove the offending limbs with beak or fire or claw. It was clearly surprised enough for a stamping of its taloned feet and a sharp caw, and the gold eyes never left the girl's face -- but it did not claw her to shreds or roast her where she stood. In less than a minute the girl had made more progress than he and an entire staff of stablehands had made all day.

The stablemaster wasn't sure whether he was excited or annoyed, and decided on a mixture of both.

The animal opened its mouth (_here it comes_) but instead of the bitter, acrid smell of burning and him having to cart off the ashes of some random girl, the ostrich-horse let out a soft creel and leaned forward into the girl's touch. She was still speaking, babbling on, some nonsense that went like "Oh but you're pretty, aren't you? Aren't you, sweet sugar cakes? You're so pretty and strong and I'd be mad too if everyone kept thinking I was a boy, and--"

That beast was a _girl?_ That animal he was so sure was a rooster-- that was impossible. Females were steadier in both body and mind; this creature was so full of fight and fire that--

The ostrich-horse emitted a sound that was too much like a purr for the stablemaster's liking. Its eyes were lidded with obvious pleasure as the girl continued to stroke its feathers, her fingers finding the solid curves of muscle at its wings and neck. For her part she had never been around one of these animals before but it felt good and right and okay, and she knew she had nothing to fear from its talons or beak. She put her hand by its throat and felt the ostrich-horse's inner fire churning there, patiently waiting for release.

"Good girl." she murmured again in a lower voice. Her parents would scold her for getting oil on her hands and the servants would seethe at having to wash the animal-musk out of her clothes, but it didn't matter. "We're going to be great friends, aren't we?"

There was a roar of flame to her right; after it had passed she raised a hand and absently smothered the small lick of fire that was dancing along the edges of her bangs. The stablemaster was shouting something, probably cursing her and the ostrich-horse and raining down insults upon both them and their respective heritages. The girl ignored him with patience, tuning out any sound outside of the animal's deep, even breathing.

"I'll take that as a yes."

* * *

1. The Prestige  
2. Moulin Rouge  
3. Gladiator  
4. The Black Stallion


	4. lyriclets ii

Another batch of lyriclets. Yes, I listen to the pop music and I have no shame. :O I should entitle this one 'Four Endings and a Beginning.' The first three seem to go together and I totally did not mean to do that on purpose. I'm being quiet now.

* * *

When the roof caved in and the truth came out  
I just didn't know what to do  
-- 'Whatcha Say,' Jason DeRulo

Azula is constant motion.

It's not 'Azula is _in_ constant motion.' Azula is constant motion.

If she's not bending, she's practicing. If she's not practicing, she's truly fighting. If she's not truly fighting she's talking. If she's not talking she's scheming. The glide and pull and release of muscle and mind is all Azula knows. Even in that most glorious of reposes -- sleep -- Azula's thoughts churn and boil and hiss like heated water and sometimes when she opens her eyes to greet a new day all that light that's been stored inside of her comes spilling out of her pupils.

Constant motion. Perpetual motion.

She can't settle down.

_What was her name?_ Ty Lee screams at her, fists coming down on her armored collarbone again and again and again. Azula doesn't twist away but she's still spinning -- her back to the accusations, the fury, the tears. She's breaking the sound barrier: moving too fast to hear noise, to hear Ty Lee's heart breaking. She's accelerating, speeding, flying by the consequences and repercussions. Terminal velocity.

It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the bottom.

***

I know I be making you those promises, then breaking your heart again  
Telling you she wasn't who she was then we're arguing  
-- 'Break Up,' Mario

Azula is constant motion.

It's not 'Azula is _in_ constant motion.' Azula is constant motion, and Ty Lee can do nothing but watch herself be swept up in Azula's wake.

Azula moves. Moves around her. Moves through her: veins, nerves, lungs. Moves through her ears, all half-truths and venom-sweet lies. Moves through her heart, circulating and settling in with every beat of her blood.

Moves against her. Moves on her. Moves in her.

Moves past the promises of faith. Moves through the rooms at night when it's too late, far too late. Moves with a scent of perfume on her neck that Ty Lee recognizes as not being hers.

Ty Lee can move too. Moves through. Moves out.

Moves on.

***

I always say how I don't need you  
But it's always gonna come right back to this  
-- 'Please Don't Leave Me,' Pink

"You can't leave me."

But Ty Lee had. Her room was bare now. Gone, the pink sheets on her bed that was comfortable enough for one but cozy with two. Gone, the stuffed animals that adorned the headboard. Gone, the bright floral-print pillows. Gone, the simple vanity that was very similar to the one she'd had while in the circus.

"You'll regret it."

She'd always threatened it before, but it had always been _Next Time._ The _next time_ you're late for dinner-- the _next time_ you don't come home until the morning-- the _next time_ you disappear for an entire weekend without saying anything-- the _next time _you lie to me about that girl-- the _next time_ the _next time_ the _next time_.

The _next time_ had finally come and gone. Ty Lee had gone.

Gone, those large brown eyes. Gone, the sweet voice that could sap Azula's will better than any thousand-man siege could. Gone, that flexible, deadly, alluring body. Gone, that flexible, deadly, alluring, _wretched_ girl.

"You'll never find anyone else like me. I'm unique!"

Gone, the arguments. Gone, the fights. Gone, Ty Lee's puffy eyes as she waited and waited and waited for an apology that never came. Gone, the opportunity to admit her affection, her admiration, her love for the acrobat.

And at the end of the day, standing in that empty room, Azula knows she isn't unique.

She's alone.

***

So if you must falter, be wise  
-- 'Disturbia,' Rihanna

Ty Lee straddles two empires and hesitates.

What does it cost to build an empire? Bodies and bones, sweat and blood. Deeds and misdeeds. A hundred years of war. Genocide. All the fierceness and ambition in the world -- both this one and the next -- packed into the deceptively petite figure of a Princess. All the strength and love in the world -- both this one and the next -- packed into the deceptively petite figure of a Noble.

Fire and knives.

Loyalty and betrayal.

Ty Lee closes her eyes and exhales. One will be the murder of a reign, the other will be a reign of murder.

She moves.

***

If you asked me if I loved him... I'd lie  
-- 'I'd Lie,' Taylor Swift

Azula doesn't like the color white.

It's too crisp, too clean. Too demure. Definitely not the haughty surety of gold or the fierce decisiveness of red. Too shy. Too innocent. The color of brides -- _subservience._ She won't be chained down, shackled to some undeserving individual.

Pale. Too sickly. Like the diseased moon hung high this night, making her have to creep extra-slowly toward the room at the very end of the palace hallway -- and palace hallways are _long_, infinitely so for impatient teenaged Princesses. Hugging pillars, pressing her body tight to the walls, keeping away from that traitorous moonlight. White light, _sick_ light, splashing down at feet and fingertips she can't quite keep contained in the shadows, threatening to reveal her to bored guards.

Azula doesn't like the color white.

It's the color of the stupid moon. It's the color of the stupid stars. It's the color of the stupid, _stupid_ flowers she's carefully, _carefully_ laying at the foot of Ty Lee's bed. Not a petal can whisper, not an inch of the sheet can move; her subterfuge must be perfect (like she is). Yesterday she had hated pink, the day before that yellow. Tonight she hates the color white and tomorrow she'll _especially_ hate when Ty Lee bounces into her room at some wretchedly early hour with the flowers cradled in the crook of her arm, crooning and purring about some secret-admirer-this and totally-romantic-that.

White is such a stupid color. The color of cold; snow and ice. The color of peace.

The color of surrender.


	5. touch

hallo all. it's TyZula week on deviantArt and since I do not have a DA account, I'm posting here. so that means five days straight of me updating! you may commence the wailing and gnashing of teeth in despair.

to kick this shindig off, I'll post Monday's entry a few hours early. enjoy.

* * *

**Sept 27th - "Touch"**

Ty Lee doesn't understand several things. She'll never have the top marks in her classes and discussions involving abstract thought -- political systems, philosophy, the metaphysical -- pass right over her head as easily as she somersaults over the heads of both admirer and enemy alike.

One of the things she _really_ doesn't get is boundaries.

She doesn't understand why Mai snorts her annoyance when she pulls the taciturn girl into a hug, or why Azula holds herself apart from letting anyone touch her. Azula can touch whomever she wants, of course, but no one was permitted to lay a finger on the Princess without her distinct permission. Acquiring said permission happened as often as the times that Azula felt inclined to genuflect to a waterbender. (Which was to say, _never_.) Ty Lee lets her entourage of adoring boys pay homage: a tentative press of a palm to her back, a sweaty entangling of fingers in her own. She'll press her cheek to those of close relatives -- and even ones not so close -- and gives enthusiastic air kisses. She'll strip down in a communal bath with as little reservation as she does her own private quarters.

And despite her lack of understanding the concept of personal space, despite her obvious physicality, Ty Lee never feels more exposed than when she feels the caress of Azula's gaze sweep over the curve of her throat.


	6. flexibility

I took the idea of Azula's (intended) service in the different branches of the military from the British tradition of their royalty doing military tours. that always sounded rather cool to me, and I'm sure Azula would approve of the idea.

* * *

**Sept 28th - "Flexible / Flexibility"**

Azula can't decide which of the services she'll enjoy serving in the most: the Fire Nation's glorious army, its fearsome navy, or its indomitable air corps.

Dearest Zuko hadn't even began to plan out his time in the military before he had been sent away on his little… errand. If he serves her no other purpose Azula can at least learn from his mistakes, and she begins to plan her tours earlier than any of her forebears had. The Fire Nation's pride is its military might and she will not, _can _not, sit on the throne without the slightest idea of how the machine functions. Though she would match the youngest recruits in terms of age, she knows there isn't a general or admiral that would refuse her service. _And which branch will win my affection?_ They were all so separate -- the army covering miles of ground at a quick trot, the navy cutting through the fiercest seas, the air corps defying the screaming winds. Ground and water and air.

And fire, to control them all.

Though each had their differences, how similar they were. How structured, how regimented. From the rigidly straight spinal column of a fresh recruit to the imposing masts of the nation's finest flagship, from the coiled lines of the newest airships rolled into service to the perfect edges of the infantry's weapons. Everything was planned: the bark of the instructor correcting the greenest soldier was just as methodically thought-out as the designs for the Fire Nation's latest airship.

But to be unyielding was not always a desirable thing. Sticking to a losing strategy or outdated doctrine would only bring sorrow. One had to adapt, improve, and overcome.

Azula's eyes flicker out into the courtyard, where she catches Ty Lee arching into a handstand. The other girl's spine is taut with effort, the muscles of her shoulders and back straining against her clothing.

A smile spreads on the Princess' sharp mouth. It was indeed as she'd been instructed:

Flexibility was the key to victory.

* * *

  
fun facts:  
"adapt, improvise, overcome:" unofficial mantra used by the US Marine Corps  
"flexibility is the key to victory:" it's actually 'flexibility is the key to _airpower_,' part of US Air Force warfighting doctrine


	7. healing

thought I'd do something different for a change. this type of poem is called a terzanelle and is one of my favorite forms. Azula's voice vs Ty Lee's voice shouldn't be difficult to pick out... ; )

* * *

**Sept 29th - "Healing"**

Voices, whispers, rumors: they said you would not remain.  
They told me no dragon could crawl out of the abyss,  
but you stood fast: my power, my pleasure, my pain.

_(Didn't I tell you that hope would always exist?  
But you were never one for words; actions instead--) _  
They told me no dragon could crawl out of the abyss

that I had plummeted into. For the first time I knew dread:  
An eternity of darkness, the blackness beyond death.  
But you were never one for words. Actions instead--

_(Tending to your wounds, listening to every hesitant breath.)  
_You were frightened: "That her I could not see—"  
_(An eternity of darkness, the blackness beyond death._

_Your imprisonment... beyond meaning. Beyond living. Beyond me.)_  
But you were there. My holy, my one and my only.  
_(You were frightened: "That her I could not see—"_

_and like fear, like hope, I stayed. Never to leave you lonely.)_**  
**Voices, whispers, rumors: they said you would not remain.**  
**But you were there. My holy, my one and my only,**  
**and you stood fast: (my power. My pleasure. My pain.)

* * *

fun facts:

if the last line in the first and last verse seems familiar, it's because I totally jacked it from Seal's "Kiss From A Rose." also, that quotation ("That her I could not see") is from Dante's _Paradisio_. he's referring to Beatrice, who was his guide through heaven. now with that in mind, you have to go re-read the poem. ha-ha, you have fallen into my evil trap!

... *flees*

============\o/


	8. playing with fire

honestly, this one was the most fun to write. I think Ty Lee really would speak in emoticons if she could. also, I tried to make the netspeak as realistic as possible but I didn't want to damage my eyes.

* * *

**Sept 30th - "Playing with Fire"**

_[VeniVidiVici]_ has entered "EverythingIsHotterInTheFireNation."

VeniVidiVici: Ty Lee, you are ridiculous.  
P!nkAura4Eva: y?  
VeniVidiVici: The name of this chat room. And your screen name.  
P!nkAura4Eva: u dont like it??? ;-; ;-; ;-;  
VeniVidiVici: For Agni's sake. What did you want to talk about?  
P!nkAura4Eva: the dance on 2 lovers day! u never go and i am making u go this yr  
VeniVidiVici: I'm done discussing this.  
P!nkAura4Eva: no! y dont you ever go with me n mai? she only smiles like 1nce a year and this is it  
VeniVidiVici: That's because she gets to see Zuko and they make their ridiculous googly-eyes at one another from across the room. I can just punch myself in the stomach repeatedly if I want to be that nauseated.  
P!nkAura4Eva: u will? rly?  
VeniVidiVici: No.  
P!nkAura4Eva: there has to b sum1 u wanna go w/  
VeniVidiVici: No.  
P!nkAura4Eva: o come on!  
P!nkAura4Eva: no one? not 1 person in the whooooole fire nation?  
VeniVidiVici: First, I hate that stupid holiday. Second, I hate dancing. Third, I don't do stupid. Frilly. Dresses. Fourth, I don't feel like standing around watching people drool over each other.  
P!nkAura4Eva: u didnt answer the question  
VeniVidiVici: I'm not going.  
P!nkAura4Eva: ur sounding like mai now. _ i bet if we find u a date ull go!  
VeniVidiVici: Well, that certainly won't happen.  
P!nkAura4Eva: mai already made the joke abt me taking half the boys in our class. i can get sum1 to go w/u, promise! :D  
VeniVidiVici: _I_ can get someone to go with me. I don't need whatever assistance you think you're offering. I just don't want to go.  
P!nkAura4Eva: OMG UR BEING SO LAME

[P!nkAura4Eva] has left the chat.

[Instant Message with: P!nkAura4Eva]  
VeniVidiVici (16:05:01): That was unbelievably rude.  
VeniVidiVici (16:05:09): Ty Lee, stop ignoring me.  
VeniVidiVici (16:05:13): TY LEE.  
VeniVidiVici (16:05:27): You are being so immature right now.  
VeniVidiVici (16:05:41): Stop it this instant.  
VeniVidiVici (16:05:55):  
VeniVidiVici (16:06:03): Someone took my date.  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:06:06): R U SRS?!?!?! O__________O  
VeniVidiVici (16:06:14): No, I'm lying.  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:06:20): STOP  
VeniVidiVici (16:06:30): For Agni's… I was being serious. I thought you, out of all people, would be able to read sarcasm through a computer. You can "read auras," after all. Whatever that means.  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:06:39): who would steal a date from u tho? ur the bestest awesomest most powerful girl in the school! u can have any1 u want!  
VeniVidiVici (16:06:48): Hah.  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:06:54): who stole ur date? well get them! :[ u n me ftw!  
VeniVidiVici: (16:06:57): How ironic.  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:07:01): ????  
VeniVidiVici (16:07:04): Don't worry about it.  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:07:10): u cant tell me that or ill worry more! who did u wanna take?  
VeniVidiVici (16:07:15): Don't worry about it.  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:07:23): AZULAAAAAAAAAAAAA  
VeniVidiVici (16:07:29): If you'll stop pestering me about this for five minutes, I'll help you shop for a new dress to wear.  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:07:36): u r so stubborn! fine we will shop but im not letting this go!  
VeniVidiVici (16:07:40): You never let anything go…  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:07:45): at least give me a hint. hot or not?  
VeniVidiVici: (16:07:49): I have _standards_, Ty Lee.  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:07:55): just checking lol! whats the 1st letter of his name :D?  
VeniVidiVici (16:07:57): His?  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:07:59):  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:08:01): Azula

[VeniVidiVici has signed off.]

P!nkAura4Eva (16:08:04):  
P!nkAura4Eva (16:08:08): Azula.


	9. forbidden

so once upon a time I read this theory that Aang was not the last airbender -- that Ty Lee, in fact, was an airbender as well. the reasons were plausible enough and while I don't personally ascribe to this belief, it's fun to play in other peoples' fandoms once in awhile. and with that said...

* * *

**Oct 1st - "Forbidden"**

Azula's silence speaks volumes more than her words.

Ty Lee can't state specific facts and figures, but she is well aware that the vast majority of communication -- indeed, the most _important _type ofcommunication -- is non-verbal. A childhood spent at court has taught her that. Her eyes are especially keen on Azula's face when court is convened; she watches every twitch on Azula's mouth as someone speaks, she watches the motions of Azula's hands and the tension or slack in her spine as she listens to what goes on in the Fire Nation. Ty Lee doesn't pay attention to what is being said, of course… she discerns whether it is pleasing or odious and then focuses all of her attention on the Princess. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the smallest gesture from Azula trumps either of those weapons. She knows a narrowing of the Princess' eyes delivers death faster than any arrow could dream and a slight shift in the hard-backed chair is a grant of clemency -- if only because of the Princess' growing boredom with the situation.

Her storm-grey eyes are trained on the Princess just as carefully every time a stray puff of wind blows the bangs away from Azula's face.

And for all her careful observing, she fails to observe Azula watching her with the exact same scrutiny.

The Princess is there every time Ty Lee drops her eyes, drops her guard, for just a split second. Azula is watching when the acrobat jumps higher, farther, faster than any normal human could. When Ty Lee starts the fire in the evening and a helpful gust gets the flames going much sooner than anticipated. When it's so hot even Mai is thinking about shedding some of her heavy, dark-colored clothing and a welcome breeze wraps around all three of them. When Ty Lee leaps into battle, her sharp silhouette against the sun like a bird-of-prey come to strike down its meal. When Ty Lee does somersaults and backhands around the palace courtyard, her arms outstretched and braid waving gleefully behind her, and looks for all the world like she is _gliding_.

Azula's silence speaks volumes more than her words. And when it is just the two of them, Ty Lee fidgeting nervously before opening her mouth to say "Azula, I have something to tell--", the Princess closes the distance between them so quickly that Ty Lee loses her breath. Azula presses her mouth against Ty Lee's and it is not a tender gesture but a desperate one _(idon'twanttohearidon'twanttohear)_ and she ignores what Ty Lee's body tells her: the girl trembling against her, the reflexive gasp, the way she hesitates and then surrenders unto Azula's touch, her sky-vast eyes sliding shut.

The only thing Azula takes note of is what Ty Lee **isn't** saying, and that kissing her feels like floating soaring flying_ flying flyingfree._


	10. cat and mouse

so, we could get into long discussions about gender and identity. we could theorize over whether Azula would be a "top" or "bottom" and have passionate arguments over why she is one and not the other, or both or none. (and it's been done. repeatedly.)

or I could have Azula make fun of all that!

* * *

**Oct 2nd - "Cat & Mouse"**

No one with half their senses about them will deny that boys pay attention to Ty Lee. She doesn't help the situation, adding fuel to the fires of their flirtation, but they seek her regardless of whether they are met with a quick second of her attention or an entire day's worth. Many of them are repeat offenders, the same faces day after day after romance-laden day. She is quite used to the play and its acts; she fills her role as leading lady with grace.

But neither will she deny that she is the _only_ leading lady to exist.

She has heard queries about the Princess' status; whether Azula will ever deign to take on a significant other. This is to be expected, after all -- when hasn't there been some sort of juicy rumor or scathing gossip or loaded speculation regarding the royal family? It is all a part of court life and Ty Lee's status as a noble has taught her about court life since the day she came squalling into the world.

Sometimes the talk takes on a decidedly different tone -- usually when the audience is only male, and unaware that Ty Lee's ears are just as sharp as her chi-blocking attacks. The boys will speak in low tones, their gestures crude and their words twice as base. Instead of the Princess' relationship status they wonder -- in more vulgar terms -- how well Azula would perform in bed. Ty Lee flushes a darker shade of pink than any article of clothing she owns when she hears the boys ask themselves whether Azula is untouched or experienced, whether her royal blood would make her different to lie with or if she is the same as any other girl, if she would take command or submit herself to her lover…

Ty Lee squeezes her eyes shut, trying with all her being to disregard the blasphemy that nips enticingly at her imagination. But like her own indulgences fuel the boys' affections, so their words fuel the secret desire within her that has been growing since their childhood. She knows that Azula has known no other, so that question is put to rest. She does not know why Azula would be any different simply because she is of Sozin's bloodline, so Ty Lee does not waste her time thinking about that. No, what pulls at her thoughts is the last of their inquiries...

_Sparrowmouse or catfalcon?_

That is the question the boys sneer to themselves, their eyes too-bright with lust and the potential of what could be. Ty Lee knows Azula would see them all reduced to bone and ash before entertaining any of their fantasies, triply so if she knew the disregard they treated her with. But she cannot look at them with disdain while she wonders if the same thing.

_Sparrowmouse._ Azula's social ineptitude was no great secret. Perhaps-- perhaps it was the same in more intimate matters? Azula lies on the bed of Ty Lee's imagination, her body yielding to the other girl's touch. Her own caresses are tentative, the arch of her spine hesitant -- and she gazes at the acrobat with no small amount of trepidation. Quiet, almost timid, shy like the songbird -- here and only here can Ty Lee imagine Azula surrendering without a fight, the press of her lips against Ty Lee's throat an unspoken supplication.

_Catfalcon._ This was just as likely as any other alternative. Along with her inability to function normally during social outings, Azula's personality and temperament were well known throughout the Fire Nation's youth. It was not difficult to imagine she would be much the same way when it came to her personal affairs. It is now Ty Lee who lies spread out in her own fantasies, quivering as Azula puts that wickedly sharp tongue of hers to another use. It is she that Azula digs her claws and fangs into, purring feline arousal in the back of her throat as her prey submits to her will.

"So the insects swarm. Why do you listen to their buzz?"

Ty Lee starts, guilt in her eyes as she spots Azula standing behind her, arms folded. How long has the Princess been waiting there? ... certainly for as long as she has been eavesdropping on the boys. The acrobat tries to stammer an explanation but both her vocabulary and her tongue betray her; when she opens her mouth nothing escapes but a dry, uneasy exhale.

Azula's eyes narrow, considering. And then: "So what do you think I am?"

Now Ty Lee's entire mind fails her. So the Princess had _heard_-- but more humiliating than Azula knowing the shameful gossip was that she also knew that Ty Lee had been listening. Never had there been a more fervent prayer sent up that some rogue earthbender open the ground beneath her and drag her to the depths of the planet, for there was no other way that she could possibly--

"I ..." An elegant nail is poised on Azula's lips as she pretends to ponder, a veneer of mockery on her words. The hand then drops to her side as she strides up to Ty Lee and leans in close, her lips just barely stroking the outer curve of the acrobat's ear. "... am a _dragon._"

And as Ty Lee stares into the Princess' intense gaze, her first coherent thought is this: _Of course._ How silly, how ridiculous to try and categorize Azula, to place her in a neat little column or row. The Princess was no _domestic_ animal, nothing that would plod around tamely and be caged or led about on a leash. The stories are wrong and Azula is right -- the last of the dragons yet exists. Whether the dragon triumphs or is defeated rests entirely upon Ty Lee, and they will battle nightly: sweating fingers grappling with animal muscle, dragon-fangs sharp against mammalian skin, human cunning versus reptilian instinct. Two parts of a whole, slayer and beast, locked in ceaseless struggle until one or both die with a shout or a roar or a whisper... and all to be born again and engage in combat the following night.

Azula's teeth sting against her neck, her tongue burns against the crevice in Ty Lee's throat. The acrobat doesn't mind. She doesn't even mind that she isn't a firebender and she has to face the fiercest dragon she has ever heard of, in myth or otherwise.

After all, the warmest place in the world is right next to the dragon's heart.


	11. night

gotta end it with a bang. it was fun, and now time for a (in my humble opinion, well-deserved) rest!

* * *

**Oct 3rd - "Night"**

Zuko and Ty Lee's first -- and only -- visit to Azula does not go well.

"And then what, Azula?" Zuko's voice is coated with venom; it is a vile, thick thing that makes the words drip from his mouth. "The crown, the kingdom, then the world? How many more must die until you are satisfied?"

A terrible smile spreads across Azula's face. It is one Ty Lee has seen innumerable times before: the smile of I Know Something You Don't Know. Those glory-gold eyes are fixated on Zuko's face so intently that Ty Lee is vaguely surprised that it isn't melting off his skull. "One."

Zuko's eyes narrow to thin slits and he matches Azula glare for glare. "You will _try_, sister."

An handful of heartbeats passes between them and then Zuko rises to his feet with a fluidity that would have made the waterbender jealous. He does not turn to acknowledge those fiery eyes burning into his back but Ty Lee does -- she gets up to slowly trail Zuko out but she is weak and she turns, she turns to find that same boiling gaze now focused on her. She tries to breathe and finds out that she can't, so instead she offers the would-be Fire Lord a smile so wide that it hurts, and these words: "I'll come see you again tomorrow night, okay 'Zula?"

She is too terrified to hear the reply and spins around before Azula can answer, clinging to Zuko's shadow as it retreats down the halls. Azula would have no qualms about killing him, the pretender to her throne, the usurper of her dreams. She inches a bit closer to him then, nothing but a subtle shift in the way she presses forward, but Zuko notices anyway and gives her a reassuring smile.

And all the way back to the palace, she cannot help but think that she is worried about the wrong sibling.

***

The coronation went beautifully. The Avatar and his companions, though initially a bit tentative, are nonetheless warm and welcoming and all too eager to include her in their jibes and jokes. Zuko is smiling like she hasn't seen in years, and Mai is smiling like she hasn't seen at all.

Ty Lee feels nauseous.

She is on her feet the instant the door comes crashing open, already sprinting forward as the stricken guard stammers out, "Milord, the Princess--"

***

She can hear their panic as she bolts through the city, every panting breath a prayer (_hold on hold on hold on_). She didn't stay behind to hear the rest of the guard's report, but she'll learn later: she'll learn that the Princess broke out, the _how_ inexplicable but the guards catching the first onslaught of her rage. She'll learn that the one guard who had his eyes burned out still lives, but the one who had his throat torn from his neck does not. She'll learn that when they inspect the blackness of her cell, the painting of fire will greet their eyes: flames upon flames, countless tongues of fire scrawled on the walls. When they look closer they'll see she used her own blood to make them.

She'll stand in the middle of the cell, surrounded by the blood-art, and when she half-closes her eyes she'll see how it almost resembles the throne room.

The throne room.

The halls of the palace are empty, all the guards dispatched to protect Lord Zuko or search the city. She is running so fast that the columns are becoming a blur and for a moment she can swear she's flying (_is this what being an airbender feels like?_); she spots the monstrous, ornate doors before her and instead of slowing down she speeds up, the doors offering no resistance as she crashes through them, completely ignorant of any physical pain, and

***

she gets a few paces in, stumbles to a stop and crumples to her knees. Those strong acrobat's legs have never failed her before and she's never been anything but the essence of poise and grace but her body doesn't feel like her own.

Azula is on the throne, looking down at her.

"Azula," she whispers, and is startled to find that her voice sounds like it's coming from a great distance away. "Azula, you-- we need to get out of here."

Silence, damnable -- damning -- silence.

***

When she draws closer she'll find that Azula's body is still warm.

And when she picks up that dear dark head in her hands, she'll see a flash of gold and amber and rabid joy will spring to life within her chest; for an iota of a second she'll believe that Azula is still--

Then she will see that there is no fire in those dull eyes and she'll feel the twin flame in her own heart sputter out of existence in a moment that is so abrupt and easy that it feels like breathing, or being born.

Or dying.

***

It is high summer when this happens. The Princess will be buried, mourned (by few) and forgotten (by many). The seasons will come and go. The sun will rise and fall, the pendulum of light and dark ever-swinging.

But for Ty Lee, that same pendulum has stopped. Her nights are filled with the heat of that same summer, frantic footfalls echoing down the corridors of her memory as she speeds toward the throne room. And when she opens her eyes to meet a new day, she will rise and walk about and eat and smile and speak and carry on like any other person, but she is simply not there.

Daylight will come to everyone else in the Fire Nation.

It will eventually come to Ty Lee as well. Light is persistent: like faith, like hope, like forgiveness. But daylight will never consume Ty Lee whole -- it will never touch the one solitary, eternal place in her heart where Azula waits, as near and as distant as the promise of _tomorrow night._


	12. two if by sea

warning: Azula kisses where you might not expect (or perhaps _precisely _where you expect), pretentious over-use of water metaphors, and you might get the desire to pee at the end from reading about water for so long.

and with that said.

* * *

**two if by sea**

_if you are the desert, I'll be the sea  
if you ever hunger, hunger for me  
_

_***  
_

The ocean is wide and the ocean is deep, but even if it dropped down to the depths of forever and swept past the boundaries of eternity it could never hope to rival Ty Lee's loyalty.

And Azula rewards loyalty.

Just as the ocean is not a noun, neither is desire. They are both verbs, _doing_ words -- restless, ever-changing actions. Ty Lee feels the current of her own desire tugging at her as she stares down at the Princess, who is kneeling between her thighs. Azula is silent; that wild, wicked tongue of hers is occupied elsewhere -- but even here, even now, Azula is all sharp angles. With each breath the Princess takes the tides of her flesh pull back, exposing sharp crags of spine and scapula. There are dips and hollows in her muscles where tiny sea-creatures would be caught in the eddies; where the skin stretches against the Princess' ribs the shadows shift and flicker like the inhale and exhale of the ocean.

There is a slight change in the motion of things. Azula knows Ty Lee is watching her.

Ty Lee shuts her eyes and feels the desire within her start to move, like water racing through the cracks of a parched earth. Water shouldn't run uphill but it does now; the heat stretches forth its greedy fingers and spreads up into her stomach. Spreads from ocean to bay, bay to river, river to stream_._ She shudders a breath -- the current inside churns, a whirlpool of feverish want nestled between her bones and within her blood. Her _blood -- _ it boils, pops, hisses, the blistering scorch of high summer's waters. Azula's head dips and bobs. Tense, tense, the tension of a humid-heavy air where the clouds sit low with anticipation, fat with lightning and the promise of a torrent to come.

Azula's touch is like morning mist lying flat on the harbor; docile, barely skimming the water's surface. But then there is a subtle change, a trade wind setting her course in stone, no need to look toward the stars now -- _faster_, and Ty Lee feels the rivers overflowing past their banks.

Faster. The churning of river foam, whitewater rapids making themselves known beneath her skin. Faster. The tides rising, rising, threatening to come up over her nose and mouth and stop her from breathing except she can't remember the last time she gasped for breath. Faster-- the pulse of the ocean beating there, _there,_ threatening to pull her down; she is not sure what she will find: darkness or light. Either way it is terrible and wonderful and Ty Lee lets herself be dragged out to sea.

_Faster_-- Ty Lee casts about blindly for an anchor; her fingernails scrabble for purchase on Azula's bare back. It's of no use; the weight of her fingernails cannot stand against the tempest. _More--_ the granules of her control are being leeched away from her, fine sand sifting through her fingers -- _yes _-- the ocean is crashing through her body now, threatening to burst from her skin --_yes--_ Azula's kiss a deluge, a waterfall from which desire pours-- _yes, and--_

Waves. Crest and trough and crest and trough and

_And--_

Ty Lee plummets underwater; it is the rich velvet-black of Azula's hair, and she does not know what direction to swim in: she does not know which way is _up._

She returns to herself the way all those who have drowned do: in pieces. A fragment of feeling here, a automatic reflex there. A touch, an exhale. The typhoon's roar has faded to a dull growl; the water still nips enticingly at her, hoping to coax her toward yet another downpour -- but Ty Lee pushes against it, struggles in from where the riptide has yanked her out. She takes great, gulping breaths when some semblance of stability returns to her and when she stares upward, she almost mistakes the brightness in Azula's eyes for the full moon that hangs directly overhead.

"Odd." the Princess muses; Ty Lee can see Azula's tongue running along the inside of her mouth. It makes her own body yearn to flood wet once more. "Odd, that a daughter of the Fire Nation should taste so much like the sea."

If the Princess had bothered to look any closer, she would have seen that Ty Lee's eyes are the color of the flat winter oceans. One cannot tame the ocean, but Ty Lee pulls Azula down and lets the Princess taste the sea-salt on her lips.

The ocean is wide and the ocean is deep, but even if it dropped down to the depths of forever and swept past the boundaries of eternity it could never hope to fill the space in Ty Lee's heart where all her verbs rest. Even so, the murky waters hide much: _loyalty_ can be seen, but _fear_ cannot. _Desire _can be seen, but _hesitation_ cannot.

_Love_ can be seen.

But _betrayal_ cannot.


	13. once upon a time in the fire nation

this is a very interesting little ditty, inspired by a number of things: comments left in the "review" section (I do indeed read each and every one of them, even if I don't reply!), those Choose Your Own Adventure books from my childhood, the Glee cover of Queen's "Somebody to Love," Chris Onstad's Achewood (where I got some of the descriptions of Zuko's Fire Nation from) and the 'Rabbia E Tarantella' from Inglourious Basterds (yep, you heard that right). have fun with this, because I sure did...

.

.

.

* * *

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE FIRE NATION

You are the High Princess Azula, fourteen years of age. You are the glory of the Fire Nation, its Most Noble Magnitude, its resplendent Crown Princess. You are Daughter and Defender of the Empire, the blessed blood of Sozin in your veins. When you pass by your people they prostrate themselves and declare hosanna to the highest.

You are the High Princess Azula, fourteen years of age, and you have decided it is time to find somebody to love.

_  
To CHECK YOUR INVENTORY, go to page 2._

* * *

(2) CHECK INVENTORY

You have:  
- Unrivaled firebending  
- An uncompromising perfectionist streak  
- A family that belongs on Oprah or at the very least, needs serious professional help  
- A stifling sense of entitlement  
- An arrogance that seems rooted in your very soul  
- All the monies and resources of the Fire Nation at your command  
- Absolutely no idea how to go about this "love" business

* select "social graces"

You do not have this in your inventory.

_  
To SELECT A MALE, go to page 3._

_To SELECT A FEMALE, go to page 4.  
_

* * *

(3) SELECT A MALE

There is not this idea.

_  
To CHECK YOUR INVENTORY, go to page 2._

_To SELECT A FEMALE, go to page 4._

* * *

(4) SELECT A FEMALE

There are two females in the area.

* mai

When you approach a thousand cherry trees spontaneously burst into full blossom, filling the air with a most satisfying fragrance. Clearly ignorant of the wonders you perform, the look Mai gives you is reminiscent of the pastries the royal baker creates -- a thick cake of indifference topped in a layer of vague annoyance, with a rich crème center of disdain.

You are reminded that she saves her attentions for your brother, Zuko. Zuko is much like a centipede: distasteful in a way you cannot describe, unpleasant to look at, not good boiled nor fried, and marginally less useful than flatulence in a strong breeze.

Perhaps it is better if Her Sanctity approaches someone who does not display affection towards centipedes.

* ty lee

When you approach the souls of a thousand deceased dragons all breathe their remaining fire into your heart, making the glory-gold in your eyes shine brighter than any sun dare and your blood sing out like stone on steel in the belly of the Fire Nation's hottest forges.

Wait -- that is but the sensation of Ty Lee crushing all the air out of your lungs as she coils herself around your body in a tight embrace, squealing your name in apparent homage.

* challenge accepted

_  
To GIVE TY LEE A GIFT, go to page 5._

_To PAY TY LEE COMPLIMENTS, go to page 6._

_To EXPRESS YOUR AFFECTION PHYSICALLY, go to page 7._

_

* * *

_(5) GIVE TY LEE A GIFT

It appears that you have no material things in your inventory. At one point you had (one) doll, (two) bouquets of flowers and (one) box of sweets, but over time they have all ended up immolated. Due to her status as a noble you are well aware that her family has coin to spare.

* upgrade her family's titles, award them land and give them rooms at court

To be able to do this, you must clear up titles and rooms and remove land ownership since all the prime real estate is taken.

* order a few executions

Perhaps it is better if you consider another way to express your affection.

_  
To PAY TY LEE COMPLIMENTS, go to page 6._

_To EXPRESS YOUR AFFECTION PHYSICALLY, go to page 7._

_

* * *

_(6) PAY TY LEE COMPLIMENTS

You speak with the voice of hurricanes, the power in your words laying low all the world's natural disasters. Not a molecule of air is wasted as you praise your wretched servant, your miserable subject that you have in all your generosity deigned to call your beloved.

"Ty Lee, your body is strong and taut… like a rope I would put around the wrists and necks of traitors to the Fire Nation." (comp1)  
"I approve of that particular shade of pink you're wearing today, Ty Lee. It reminds me of the newly-spilt tissues of a foe as I rend their innards to shreds." (comp2)  
"When I gaze into your storm-grey eyes, Ty Lee, I am filled with exhilaration -- for they are surely the same color as the smoke that would rise into a sky when our great army obliterates a pathetic Earth Kingdom village from existence." (comp3)  
"Your fighting prowess is truly a sight to behold. I can only hope that one day it will be put to use in my service, striking at the vital organs and spines of our enemies." (comp4)  
"Ty Lee, when we were younger and you did more cartwheels than I, I would often wish a well-placed boulder would crush you while you slept. Now I am glad to see that had not come to pass." (comp5)

***

* If you have chosen (comp1) or (comp3):

A tentative smile spreads over the young acrobat's face; clearly she is too awed by receiving such favors that she can manage no better reaction. "Um… thanks, 'Zula! I think…"

* If you have chosen (comp2) or (comp4):

A look of vague nausea passes over Ty Lee's face; clearly she is so overwhelmed by your approval that she is feeling faint. You are like the sun, a mere mortal cannot stand in your presence for overlong without adverse effects. Her eyes are heavy and lidded as she struggles to regain her composure -- certainly this is what they mean when they speak of 'bedroom eyes.'

* If you have chosen (comp5):

"Aw, you don't mean that!" The acrobat twirls around you; a mere satellite to your awe-inspiring presence. "You're just upset that I did more cartwheels than you… even though you are the greatest, most wonderful Princess in the world."

You decide that Ty Lee's compliments, while at most a trail of slime on the monument of your greatness, are suitable enough to overlook the blasphemy she had spewed but a few seconds before about being able to best you in some manner.

***

The time to advance is now. Fortune favors the bold!

_  
To EXPRESS YOUR AFFECTION PHYSICALLY, go to page 7._

_

* * *

_(7) EXPRESS YOUR AFFECTION PHYSICALLY

* pull Ty Lee's hair

"Ow! Azula, get off me!"

* push Ty Lee into a mud puddle

"Azula! Now I'm all dirty and wet… why did you do that?!"

* laugh at her distress

Ty Lee's eyes begin that curious process by which mere mortals express extreme feeling. Fluid begins to fill up in them and it almost resembles a buildup of sweat after a grueling training session. Upon spotting said occurrence there is a dull aching sensation within that empty void in your chest. You have always reasoned said vacuum is a placeholder for softer emotions, which you have lost in your apotheosis.

* fine, I'm… s… sorry. how else are you supposed to know that I…

"… that you what?"

* that… that ours would be a mating of lion-turtles! a renaissance! a merging of forces that both this world and the spirit world would kneel before! can you not see the raw potential here, molten metal standing ready before the fires of our love? such a union would have the ability to eviscerate anyone who stood against us, a--

"Azula. You could have just said you liked me."

* … oh.

"Why don't… why don't you try something a little different? Like being gentler?"

* gentler? that's something ZUKO would do. absolutely out of the question, I--

"For me?"

* … well, I'll--

"Oh, thank you, 'Zula! You're the most generous Princess in the history of the Fire Nation!"

_  
To REPORT TO ZUKO'S HAPPY MAGICAL DREAM WORLD OF BUNNY-KITTENS, go to page 8._

_

* * *

_(8) ZUKO'S HAPPY MAGICAL DREAM WORLD OF BUNNY-KITTENS

You are the High Princess Azula, fourteen years of age. You are the generosity of the Fire Nation, its Most Benevolent Lady, its charitable Crown Princess. You are the very Essence of Fire Nation Kindness, passing out alms to lepers with your own royal hands. When you pass by your people they touch the hem of your garment and consider themselves consecrated.

* exit

There are no exits.

_  
To PLEAD TO AGNI FOR RELEASE, go to page 9._

_To BURN EVERYTHING DOWN IN AN INSUFFERABLE RAGE, go to page 10._

_To FIND TY LEE AND SCREAM AT HER UNTIL SHE HAS A HEART ATTACK, go to page 11._

_

* * *

_(9) PLEAD TO AGNI FOR RELEASE

* pray to agni

There is only the inescapable feeling of warmth and peace enveloping you like an alpaca-lamb blanket.

* pray to any monotheistic deity

There is only the inescapable feeling of warmth and peace enveloping you like an alpaca-lamb blanket.

* pray to any polytheistic deity

There is only the inescapable feeling of warmth and peace enveloping you like an alpaca-lamb blanket.

* someone, anyone, get me out

You walk through the sun-lit gardens of the royal palace, where fostered children from all four nations run barefoot in the gardens. The children are dirty and one has a disease of the respiratory system which causes an uninterrupted flow of mucus from the nose, but you patiently allow the child to clear its face on your robe.

_  
To BURN EVERYTHING DOWN IN AN INCONSOLABLE RAGE, go to page 10._

_To FIND TY LEE AND SCREAM AT HER UNTIL SHE HAS A HEART ATTACK, go to page 11._

_To RESIGN YOURSELF TO A MISERABLE EXISTENCE OF PEACE AND HARMONY, go to page 12._

* * *

(10) BURN EVERYTHING DOWN IN AN INCONSOLABLE RAGE

Zuko has taken some of your finest ostrich-horses, elegant as lightning and twice as fast, to distribute to the rural poor at the outskirts of the Nation's borders. With your main method of transportation gone you are happy to walk into town where you donate your time caring for the terminally ill and elderly in a nondescript wood dwelling.

A flight of dayingales sings in a nearby tree, and you exult generally that Prince Zuko the Compassionate presides over your Nation.

_  
To PLEAD TO AGNI FOR RELEASE, go to page 9._

_To FIND TY LEE AND SCREAM AT HER UNTIL SHE HAS A HEART ATTACK, go to page 11._

_To RESIGN YOURSELF TO A MISERABLE EXISTENCE OF PEACE AND HARMONY, go to page 12._

* * *

(11) FIND TY LEE AND SCREAM AT HER UNTIL SHE HAS A HEART ATTACK

You step quietly into the simple abode you share with your significant other. You have shunned your royal title and trappings and donated your wealth to the poorest of the poor. Your callused hands ache after the long hours of attending to the needs of orphans and widows, but you pull out a set of cooking materials without complaint. Ty Lee will be home soon and it is your turn to make dinner; after the food is ready you will draw a warm bath to ease her aching muscles.

* no

What?

* no

Are you going against the wishes of the Most Merciful Prince Zuko and the Thriving Prosperity he has governed over?

* I am the Dread Fire Lord Azula. I am your beautiful and terrible master -- I ride forth and conquer, I do not administer charity to the poor and ill! Zuko is nothing but a momma's boy who wraps up his insecurities in a veneer of honor that is as transparent as animal urine and the only 'thriving prosperity' he could govern over is a plot of mold and maggots that his decomposing body feeds. Ty Lee is my loyal and obedient servant, she comes and goes by MY leave -- it is she that is my faithful war-hound, not the other way around! and what sort of madness is this ridiculous fantasy world of peace and love? the Fire Nation military would not be keen to surrender its gains and the other three nations -- what survives of them, anyhow -- would not trust anyone born of the Fire Nation in Zuko's lifetime. I came here to prove that Ty Lee is the only one who is an iota above utter insignificance and that she is worthy enough to call me her consort -- for I am Princess Azula, the Lash and the Law, and you will RELEASE ME!

This_  
_  
This is thoughtcrime. You will be processed but there is no hope of reintegrating you into society; the selfishness of your individual thoughts and actions is a mark of shame our Wondrous Regime cannot bear. You are officially an Enemy of the State, an aberration that cannot continue to exist. You have been cut off from the light and love of the Great Leader as a cancer would be culled from the body. Without the Gentleness of Prince Zuko there is no sun or oxygen but a deep, everlasting abyss. You gnash your teeth and wail as if all the millennium's dead have risen and are approaching you, but a heavy silence is all that meets your tortured cries. All your ancestors rend their eyes in agony at your irresponsibility and any children you have throw themselves down a well.

All you can do now is wait for starvation to set in.

* FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

_  
To RESIGN YOURSELF TO A MISERABLE EXISTENCE OF PEACE AND HARMONY, go to page 12._

* * *

(12) RESIGN YOURSELF TO A MISERABLE EXISTENCE OF PEACE AND HARMONY

You are in a brightly-lit patchwork tent. There is joyful noise from all sides; around you, the young and old laugh and applaud in delighted awe. Many colorful characters cavort on the dirt before you and above, a few individuals fling themselves about in defiance of gravity and their own common sense. The stench of nearby animals and food cooked in too much grease fills your nostrils.

* leave immediately

You cannot leave. You are in heaven.

* I… am?

Ty Lee thinks so.


	14. out of nothing at all

fluff. short, sweet, contains your daily dose of essential vitamins and minerals. title is from the famous Air Supply song ("Making Love Out Of Nothing At All"), if you're old enough to remember it. if not, there's always Wikipedia. got a couple of projects in-work, now if only I could actually sit down and _write _them aaaaaaargh.

* * *

**out of nothing at all**

*****  
**

Ty Lee knows Azula loves to talk.

Ty Lee knows Azula loves to talk, and thus also knows that it's time to worry about Azula when Azula stops talking.

Here's the formula: some sort of monosyllabic sound, followed by a) a flippant rely, or the more commonly used answer, b) "nothing."

When it's nothing, it's usually something.

Ty Lee has heard that 'nothing' from Azula's mouth in every tone possible. "Nothing" said sickly-sweet, when Azula was trying to persuade her that she wasn't hiding something -- which Ty Lee knew off the bat was a lie, because it was accompanied by a look of mischief that would have put her younger self to shame. "Nothing" that was a low mutter, accompanied by Azula shifting her eyes: that was usually when she was upset or down about something, and often Ty Lee had to follow that up with a particularly spectacular backrub to drag it out of the other girl. "Nothing" in a growl with a curl of her upper lip, and that was the one Ty Lee bristled at -- that was when Azula was mad and spoiling for a fight, and more often than not ended up with the two girls rolling around on the ground, both cursing and sweating, and then Azula's fingers somehow ended up _in_ Ty Lee and there was more cursing and sweating. "Nothing" that was quiet and almost-meek -- that is, the closest Azula could ever get to being meek -- with Azula peering over at Ty Lee tentatively; this was the tone used when Azula knew she'd messed up... and then Ty Lee felt lips on the back of her neck, and smooth fingers sliding down the front of her pants, and a warm hand finding something that was infinitely warmer.

"Nothing" when Azula was angry, "nothing" when Azula was sad. "Nothing" when she was moody, "nothing" when she was apologizing, "nothing" when she was hurt -- and Azula would be damned before she'd ever admit she was hurt. Ty Lee can recall the time she'd seen Azula limping around when the Princess thought Ty Lee wasn't looking, only to straighten up and grunt at her when Ty Lee asked what was wrong. "Nothing."

Ty Lee waited for an hour while the healer patched up the raw burns on Azula's leg; she'd been hobbling around with second-degree burns for a week.

Ty Lee knows Azula has her pride, and she lets the other girl keep it. She doesn't ask if Azula is hurt unless the Princess is close to death or dismemberment. She doesn't ask about Azula's leg or the physical pain the girl had to be going through.

She doesn't ask about Ozai and his curious training methods, either.

What Ty Lee does ask though, is infinitely more revealing. It's after they've returned from the healer's residence and Azula had whined and grumbled and pouted until Ty Lee coaxed her into bed. Ty Lee is tucked before Azula now, curled in front of the other girl's body. Azula's knees are pressed into the backs of her legs, Azula's stomach is warm against the small of her back. One of Azula's arms is wrapped loosely around Ty Lee's waist, her fingers playing along the edges of the acrobat's ribs.

Ty Lee asks if she can bring Azula anything. "Nothing."

In this case, nothing means something. Ty Lee brings some painkillers and a glass of water, then slides back into bed.

A bit later, Ty Lee's fingers find Azula's. They interlock, and Ty Lee squeezes the other girl's hand lightly.

"What do I mean to you?"

Ty Lee has never asked Azula this question before. She can feel Azula shift behind her, knows the other girl's eyes are darting left and right like they usually do when Azula is truly, utterly startled, or truly, utterly uncomfortable. Or both. Azula grunts and tucks herself a bit tighter behind Ty Lee, her head lowering as she snaps out the answer. This time, the tone is gruff, annoyed.

"Nothing."

Ty Lee smiles and pulls Azula's arm a bit tighter around her side.

In this case, nothing means everything.


	15. year of the

soooo, totally meant to write all of this by Chinese New Years (Feb 14?) and that definitely did not happen. so happy belated CNY, everyone! :D

* * *

**snake**

One of Ty Lee's favorite parts about visiting the palace are the days that Azula feels like going to visit the royal menagerie. The Princess is neither here nor there with the animals, as quick to taunt them as she is to ignore their existence. Unlike Zuko, who is given to caring for them daily, Azula and her friends only grace the menagerie with their presence whenever the Princess' whims carry her there.

Ty Lee stretches up on her toes and tentatively reaches out to stroke the head of an eyas-kitten; the creature lets out a murr at her caress and inches closer. Azula never spends her time near things that are round, fuzzy and affectionate -- she lingers by the cages of the animals with poison in their fangs and unblinking black eyes.

"Look at it," Azula says appreciatively when Ty Lee approaches with the eyas-kitten cradled in her arms. Behind the cage there is a creature made up of coiled muscle and at Ty Lee's approach it flares its hood; though Ty Lee does not speak its language she understands the translation of its warning hiss perfectly: _I am become Death, infinite sleep I give._

"See how it lifts its head to threaten us?" Azula's eyes practically glow as she leans in close, a serpent's smile on her face. "Incredible, the courage and disdain it displays. What other beast would think so low of us as to bare its throat as a warning? Name me one other animal that would present its heart without fear to someone who could rip it to shreds."

Ty Lee takes a breath, counts her own heartbeats and thinks, _Not without fear._

* * *

**dragon**

The stories about dragons are just that -- stories. That's what Ty Lee thinks, anyway; even though she's always had an overactive imagination it's difficult for her to imagine the flying behemoths when all they're granted nowadays is homage of the tongue and the occasional purported artifact -- a fang from this one, a bone from that one. She can't conjure the images on her school scrolls to life, replace ink with scale and paper with muscle. Ancient history is ancient history and in Ty Lee's mind it all stays where it should: buried.

The dragon on Azula's back is another story.

Ty Lee is a talented artist, almost as skilled with the brush as she is in tumbling. No member of the royal family would ever be desecrated with something so low-class as a tattoo but on occasion Azula likes to pretend, and she invites Ty Lee to practice on the canvas of her back.

Ty Lee likes to daydream while she scrawls over Azula's bare skin. Here is a dragon, and it is rising out of the ocean... a far more real being than the things with dead gazes that stare at her from her assigned school texts. Perhaps it is Azula's own fire that makes this ink-dragon that much closer to being real, and Ty Lee swears she can see a tint of life in those inquisitive draconic eyes every time Azula exhales.

"What have you drawn this time?"

"A dragon of the sea."

Azula's tone is light and loaded: "Are you pretending to be this sea dragon made of ink?"

"I would be close to you if I were. Always against your skin." Ty Lee's lips press a kiss that is fainter than mist to the back of Azula's shoulder.

"Ty Lee the dragon." Azula makes no further noise as she rolls over to face Ty Lee; when she pulls the acrobat's mouth down to meet hers Ty Lee tastes an ocean's danger on the Princess' lips, feels dragon's fire on Azula's tongue. It is a curious sensation to burn while drowning -- or is it to drown while burning?

If there is an answer to that the dragon on Azula's back offers nothing but quiet, and it smears beneath Ty Lee's fingers when the acrobat wraps her arms around the Princess -- going the way that all dragons before it have gone and maintaining its silence long after it has faded to a dark blur.

Just another casualty of the line of Sozin.

_

* * *

  
_**rabbit**

"Rabbits are very sexual, but tend to give more of themselves than they should. This can lead to unrealistic expectations and unhealthy situations. Rabbits need partners who won't take advantage of their giving nature. Such pairings will be strong." – Chinesezodiac . com

***  
_Ty Lee's diary_

Dear diary,

Today started off just like any other -- with a visit to see Azula at the royal palace. I had been contemplating the nature of our relationship lately... while externally Azula is definitely a doer, the alpha female of all Type A personalities at court, it appears that she is more passive when it comes to our relationship. She leads by not leading -- instead of acting it is more 'reacting;' her thoughts and words are controlled by my own actions. When I am unhappy, she seeks to cheer me. When I grieve, she comforts me. When I am glad, she strives to maintain my mood. I wonder if she passively allows me to control the mood of our relationship because she is unconsciously tired of having to lead -- being expected to lead -- at all times, or if she permits me to think I am in control and by doing so, ultimately ends up dictating the nature of our relationship?

All were heavy thoughts, and all were lifted upon seeing my Princess, standing there to greet me at the side entrance. As I drew closer, however, I noticed that her brow was crinkled and she greeted me with familiarity, but the salutation felt perfunctory... almost forced.

I immediately began to run through a mental list of things that could be wrong -- and when you are in an illicit relationship with the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, that list is long. So long, in fact, that I did not notice that we had entered her private chambers for tea. I had only gotten to thinking that the Earth Kingdom had reclaimed a Fire Nation colony at its borders – probably number nine on a list of hundreds -- when Azula, who had been quietly sipping her tea, brought the cup down to her saucer and looked at me with mild concern.

"Your shirt looks like it was dragged through the airbender purge. Tell your servants to do a better job next time."

What hurt me more than her words was the total disinterest in her eyes as she looked away from me. Of course I held back my tears and responded with eager assurances that I would not present myself in such a manner again, but she dismissed my apology with a tightening of her lips, clearly indicating she did not wish for me to speak further. Torment plagued me then -- oh, to know what was bothering my Azula! I wish it were as simple as offering to write her literature essays for her back at the Academy... everyone always thought me simple for I could not write my own papers in the same style that I wrote hers, lest our instructors become too suspicious, and of course I had to pull back my own skills to ensure she got the higher grade. But my love had far greater things to concern herself with other than the supposed apotheosis of Agni during the Age of Dragons -- one of my finest writings, if I recall...

Ah, but I digress. Little did I know that I was to find the answer to my concerns in a most abrupt and unsatisfying fashion!

After tea, I was left to my own devices while Azula attended to her own private matters. Wandering down the hallways and making sure to avoid Lord Ozai -- he peers at me in a very mistrustful manner, as if he knows what is happening between his daughter and I -- I happened upon a door that had been left ajar, and heard Azula's voice coming from within. I paused and told myself it was due to my concern for her health, but I wish I had walked on when I heard these words:

"So you are certain? No one else knows?"

"No, my liege." A female figure in guard attire struck to attention before bowing. "I will continue to serve you as you see fit."

The Princess then placed her hands on the guard's shoulders, drawing her far too near for my liking before hissing into her ear: "Then by Agni, serve me well. And remember, no one is to know of our... exchanges."

I hastened away before my quivering tongue lost control and lent voice to what my heart was currently shrieking: Traitor! For years I had served the Princess loyally, with no question and no hesitation -- and now she chooses to show her favor to another?!

I found solace in an empty room, trying to override my grief with sense: the royal family selects who they will lie with, and Azula's... other affairs... were not my concern. Most nobles were known to discreetly take on lovers -- as the daughter of a noble, that is no secret. But even with that knowledge, the sudden discovery of my love's wenching shredded me from within. Had I somehow been inadequate? Just this morning she had chastened me, that my attire had been lacking… each and every mistake I had made in our relationship consumed me then, grief overcoming rage in an awesome wave. The Princess deserved no less than perfection; was it her fault that I had fallen far short? No wonder she had deigned to take another lover; it was a wonder that she had not completely dismissed me from her presence yet...

Azula found me there later and said nothing as I hastily attempted to compose myself. We passed the afternoon much as we always do, with games and talk -- but her words were distant and mine filled with a false cheer. Impatient with the charade, Azula left me to dine with her father but instructed me to wait in her chambers. I wandered the room like a lost child, running my fingers over her fine things and gazing at her portrait when I could see it clearly through my tears. I wanted of her love, but I was selfish to think that the Princess had to be bound solely to me... to think that one of Sozin's line would bless me with such a gift, and I greedily desired more!

The thoughts of my inadequacies nearly brought me to my knees, but I could hear Azula approaching and summoned my courage -- she did not need to come upon me weeping like an orphan; such a sight would only encourage her to take more lovers! The Princess took me to her bed and touched me gently -- an act that almost saw me undone once more. We proceeded to make love but even when I drew her hands against my flesh her eyes were unfocused and her mind elsewhere... clearly thinking of the love she could be making to that-- that--

Afterward I returned home, where now I sit with my mind in turmoil and try to get all my thoughts on paper to make sense of them later. I will try to be better for Azula. I must. At least here I can finally shed my tears without fear of being discovered.

My life is a disaster.

***  
_Azula's journal_

Today I received confirmation from one of my servants that Zuko has located the Avatar. This does not bode well, and I am rather vexed.

But at least I got laid.

* * *

**horse**

( I'm not quite sure why I love the idea of Azula being a fire-breathing chocobo... er, ostrich-horse, but I do. see 'at the movies i' for further background. )

"Easy," Ty Lee tried to plead, but a part of her wondered whether she was trying to soothe the stubborn animal beneath her or if it was really an attempt to quiet her own nerves.

The black beast turned its head to the side to eye her sharply, then responded with a defiant snort and returned to biting at the bars around its head in apparent distaste. It was clear the ostrich-horse did not care for being caged in -- even for so short a period of time as prior to a race -- and desired its freedom… but even when the gate was to open, Ty Lee doubted the ostrich-horse's ability to perform.

Well, that wasn't exactly right -- she didn't doubt its ability to perform, she was just quite certain that it would refuse to.

Ever since she'd met and befriended the beautiful animal, Ty Lee knew she had to display its strength and skill to others… for it had already displayed its temper and penchant for wreaking havoc prior to her appearance, and Ty Lee was all but certain that the animal had been slated for destruction. Unwilling to see such a fine creature be put to the knife and used to fertilize the earth, she'd begged her family to buy its freedom and assured her parents the purchase would be worth it.

Finally giving in to his youngest daughter's pleas, all her father had to say was this: "That beast better be worth it, or I'll put it under the knife myself."

And what better place to display the ostrich-horse's worthiness than at the peak of high summer, when the Fire Nation was at the height of its splendor and festivals were held to celebrate Agni's strength? And so Ty Lee had tried -- by Agni, she had tried -- to train the ostrich-horse to run in the races. It turned out the creature hated both the bit and the rein, preferring to be its own master and leader, so she'd sacrificed both stability and control in hopes that it would please the ostrich-horse and allow it to be complacent to her direction. But instead the creature had simply demanded more, refusing even a saddle. And even with all the concessions Ty Lee had made, the ostrich-horse still would not listen. It was unmoved by each and every reason Ty Lee had given, accompanied by everything from tears to anger: pride in itself. The joy of running free. The elation of victory. Certain death at her father's hands. A life being used as a beast of burden, instead of living free at her family's estate. No, none of those reasons had been enough to compel the creature to do her bidding.

And even so, Ty Lee had registered them for the largest race on the final day of the festivals. And now they sit, seconds away from the gates opening and the crowd roaring, and there is not a hint of cooperation in the ostrich-horse's rigid stance and defiant gaze.

Something ticks within Ty Lee's mind. Leaning down and gently pressing her fingers into the ruff of feathers at the side of the animal's neck -- no bridle to guide her -- Ty Lee closes her eyes and whispers, "For me, Azula?" She does not know who or how or why or what, but--

The gates clang open.

Ty Lee doesn't move, but she feels the animal beneath her take a breath, its chest expanding outward, and then

it _flies._

At the conclusion of the race, the dazed girl atop the triumphant ostrich-horse can only recall mere blurs of things: opponents on either side falling back, behind, disappearing as quickly as they'd appeared-- the feeling of that sleek muscle moving beneath her trembling fingers-- a hush from the crowd, and then a gasp of surprise, and then a collective exuberant shriek-- the inky blackness of the ostrich-horse's feathers swimming around her like unconsciousness-- the finish pole, in and out of her vision quicker than a breath.

And the reason for their victory: a blue fire exploding from the animal's ebony wings, propelling it forward like-- like _lightning_--

Ty Lee can see her parents shouldering their way through the crowd that now swarms them; she can hear all sorts of offers for the animal being thrown at her, bags of money shoved toward her. She turns away, wants to bury her face into the ebony feathers of the creature's wings, but she catches its amber eyes instead.

There is something familiar in them -- too familiar -- but before she can reach out and caress the ostrich-horse's head, it turns from her to snap dangerously close to a newfound male fan, who is reaching up to hand Ty Lee a congratulatory bouquet. The boy yelps and drops the would-be gift, which the animal promptly grinds into the dirt with a large, taloned foot. The smug look on its face is too telling--

_I know who you are--_

But the instant is gone as soon as Ty Lee's father calls her name. Something heavy and insistent will press at the back of Ty Lee's mind, at the back of her memories, but between the ostrich-horse's gloating and the elation of victory the feeling is soon forgotten. Another life, another time, all lost in the noise and madness. The only thing that remains is a name:

_Azula._

* * *

**tiger- rooster / monkey - rat **

_Azula's Fables: How the Tiger-Rooster got its stripes_

**  
**Once upon a time, there was a tiger-rooster known as Far Striker. This tiger-rooster was the lord of lightning and king of all the animals of the jungle, for with its unblemished golden hide and proud crest of feathers, none could hope to rival either its power or natural majesty.

Far Striker was roaming the jungle one day, contemplating whether it should hunt or perhaps torment its weaker sibling, when it chanced upon a monkey-rat sitting on a branch above its noble head. Even though the combination of a monkey and rat sounded grotesque, the creature was in truth alarmingly easy on the eyes, with its wide gaze and upturned nose. But Far Striker was wary, for the monkey-rat was not only the most nimble animal in the jungle but it was known for being one of the craftiest, surprisingly enough.

"What do they call you, monkey-rat? How are you addressed?" Far Striker asked, flames licking at the tiger-rooster's lips in a very unsubtle warning to be prompt with a reply.

"I am known as--"

"Trickster, is what." Far Striker interrupted, its magma-gold eyes narrowing. "I have heard of you. Accompany me on my travels. The Ox-Goat will travel with us as well, and we shall find adventure and glory."

Fearful of being torn limb from limb, the monkey-rat hurried to position itself at the tiger-rooster's side. Though it felt it was giving up much, leaving the jungle where it was free to fling itself about the treetops and perform acrobatics for the amusement of other monkey-rats, what the tiger-rooster had spoken of came to be. There were many adventures that lay in store for them, and glory and honor and even an entire kingdom was won by their feats. And in that time, the tiger-rooster came to trust and even grew fond of the monkey-rat.

During this time, the monkey-rat had claimed at times that it grew weary; determined to reach its goal, Far Striker had allowed itself to be fitted with bonds of strong rope so that the monkey-rat could ride upon it until its strength had returned. Over time, the tiger-rooster found itself entwined with more and more of this rope, though for the monkey-rat's sake Far Striker put up with much. Even so, those burdensome ropes kept the monkey-rat close -- a thing that Far Striker desired much -- and the tiger-rooster bore this burden with only the occasional complaint.

But there came a time of betrayal -- the ox-goat, moody but steadfast, declared its own fondness for Far Striker's lowlier sibling and challenged the indignant tiger-rooster. Roaring back its own challenge, Far Striker thus commanded the monkey-rat:

"Release me from these bonds, that I may teach this traitor a lesson!"

But the monkey-rat promptly bounded over to the ox-goat's side, urging retreat for them both -- these ropes had turned out to be a trap, one that the monkey-rat had cleverly planned over a long period of time and one that prevented Far Striker from leaping after the deserters. No matter how it spat and clawed and tore, the tiger-rooster remained bound tight. Too late did the tiger-rooster remember that the monkey-rat had been named Trickster, and for good reason…

Great flames of anguish consumed Far Striker's body, allowing it to break free of the bonds that held it down… but permanently branding its once-immaculate hide with black scars of treachery. Far Striker would remain forever marked, a bitter reminder to never weigh itself down with the unnecessary bonds of friendship and love.

* * *

**pig**

Azula was very dependable.

She could be depended on to be high-strung and impatient, oozing entitlement and demanding perfection from everyone including herself. She could be depended on to win, no matter the cost. She could be depended upon to be callous, even cruel. She could be depended upon to be an undependable friend, selecting who or what to honor at her whim.

She could be depended on to eat every three hours.

Ty Lee doesn't know what it is -- maybe a higher metabolism due to being a bender? The energy that ran through her body surely consumed much; Azula was never one to train _easy_ -- and besides, fire was a voracious element that devoured everything in its path until it drove itself into extinction. To have water or earth or air at your command… those seemed far more forgiving elements. But fire demanded sacrifice. Fire demanded fuel -- and fuel it would have.

Every three hours. The cycle broke only when the Princess slept or trained and when she had gone for too long without a meal she was unbearable to be around, eyes and words sharper than any boar-q-pine's quills.

Speaking of which--

Ty Lee watches as Azula shovels food in her mouth and wonders about the Earth Kingdom refugees that have fled before her nation's might; if they, upon reaching some safe haven, proceeded to eat as such. Normally the Princess is the model of elegance but when there are no nobles around to put on airs for, such displays are thrown aside in the desperate need for sustenance.

Normally, Ty Lee cannot tease Azula about her appetite. As a very physical young girl, growing in both body and acrobatic talent, she consumes her meals with as much gusto as the Princess. But today is different, Azula's hunger a tsunami compared to the impatient waves of normal. The Princess is half-done with a bowl of rice between the time Ty Lee enters the room and takes her seat before Azula; another quarter is gone when she picks her head up from the customary bow she gives by way of greeting. Azula's acknowledgement of her presence is but a mere flash of those amber-gold eyes before she looks back down to the meal seat before her, one that is disappearing at an alarming rate. Ty Lee idly wonders what would happen if Azula should choke -- she is but all of six years old and though she can perform a one-handed cartwheel already, she is completely ignorant in the art of lifesaving. _Hopefully one of the guards would hear and they would help, or at least go get Princess Ursa. The Princess is kind and wise, and would definitely know how to--_

Ty Lee's mind, already a fickle thing when it comes to following one thought to its conclusion, is easily interrupted when Azula looks up at her and the only thing Ty Lee can think about is how the Princess, with her stuffed cheeks, resembles a chickadee-chipmunk.

"Whass f'nneh?" the Princess promptly demands, forgetting about all her etiquette lessons in her desire to know the cause of the broad grin that has unwittingly spread over Ty Lee's face. Crumbs spill out of Azula's mouth and onto her chubby child's hands, and her puffed-up cheeks cause her accusing eyes to squint further -- and now the chickadee-chipmunk transforms into a sulking boar-q-pine piglet.

And the only answer Ty Lee has is to burst into hysterical giggles in Azula's face.

When Princess Ursa checks up on the two children a half-hour later, she stops suddenly at the doorway -- and then gingerly picks her way across the destroyed room, being careful to avoid the piles of squished rice that mar the formerly immaculate carpets. She tries not to think of how the servants will howl when they see the dumplings that pockmark the walls and chuckles ruefully when she spots the wide swath of tan that streaks across the floor -- one of Iroh's teas, judging by the smell, and put to use not as it was intended to be, but instead as a slip-trap. Judging by the footprints that track through it and the abrupt occurrence of handprints -- made when a small child hastily tried to catch her fall -- the trap has done its work. Ozai would be proud...

The crease in Ursa's forehead softens when she finds the two perpetrators. Their hair is mussed and their clothes beyond salvage, their hands sticky with evidence of the battle that had taken place but minutes prior. The dining-table is overturned and Ty Lee is snuggled against it, a little smile on her face as she dreams. Azula is laying on top of her, her head pillowed on the other girl's stomach, one arm dangling lazily at her side while the other is thrown wide over Ty Lee's chest, her fingers grazing the little acrobat's collarbone. She sleeps as well, although there is a cross look on her face -- it seems that Ty Lee laughs at her still, even while they rest, and it continues to perturb the Princess.

Scooping a child under each arm, Ursa carries them to Azula's bedroom, which is a far more appropriate resting place than amidst the carnage of a food fight. Azula's scowl deepens when she is placed on the other side of the bed and she unconsciously moves over to butt up against Ty Lee's back; the acrobat shifts slightly to accommodate for the Princess' head digging into her shoulderblade and then they both settle into a deeper, peaceful sleep.

Ursa, meanwhile, sets about planning the renovation of the room in order to make it more… Azula-proof. Ozai will protest, of course, but once he sets foot in a pile of mush that used to be fried shrimp, the Prince will see reason…

**

* * *

  
dog**

_You have one (1) new text._

did u pick this year's Carnivale theme?  
_From: Ty Lee  
16 Feb 8:05PM_

What in Agni's name makes you think I had anything to do with so ridiculous a theme? *Canines*? Truly? Zuko picked that asinine theme.  
_From: Azula  
16 Feb 8:07PM_

oh I thought it was cute  
_From: Ty Lee  
16 Feb 8:08PM_

Well. I gave him the idea, you know. He took credit for it.  
_From: Azula  
16 Feb 8:09PM_

I knew u did, cuz ur the most bestest girl in the Fire Nation! & u look splendid in that cobramann pinscher mask I bet  
_From: Ty Lee  
16 Feb 8:12PM_

Really, you couldn't have said 'fearsome' or 'majestic' instead? And what is it, exactly, that you're supposed to be?  
_From: Azula  
16 Feb 8:14PM_

a black crabrador  
_From: Ty Lee  
16 Feb 8:15PM_

Right. That would explain the... claws.  
_From: Azula  
16 Feb 8:16PM_

could u come over and help me put my collar on, sweet sugar cakes? ;-]  
_From: Ty Lee  
16 Feb 8:18PM_

... on my way.  
_From: Azula  
16 Feb 8:19PM_


	16. all roads lead to rome

as usual, un-fashionably late to the party! done for tyzula week 2010. optional author's notes (not a plot summary, just random tidbits I wanted to include) and story prompt included up here.

prompt: dr. ty lee

notes: azula's watched a lot of fight club in prison.

* * *

**all roads lead to rome**

**...  
**

_It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything._

**...**

Is that what Azula had told her? It was so difficult to remember, given that the last time Azula had spoken to her - in fact, it was the last time anyone could remember the Princess speaking at all - had been just over six years ago, at Azula's prison.

It was a rather clever place to 'institutionalize' the former princess, or whatever other large word Zuko had used - hiding her in plain sight. The building was not decrepit and haunting enough to tempt thrill-seekers and spirit-searchers; nor was it imposing and secretive enough to draw victims of schoolyard dares. It was simply another building, common and unadorned from the outside, and nestled into one of the older parts of the city. The only experience Ty Lee had with the neighborhood were the fleeting glimpses she would get before her father would hastily draw the curtain on the palanquin as they were rushed past.

That was before Azula.

Ty Lee doubts if there can ever really be an 'after Azula.' One does not simply discard the Princess and her influence like an old pair of shoes. She remembers the combination of fear and bile rising to her throat as she entered the building for the first of many times - and it wasn't even Azula herself that had inspired such a reaction. Ty Lee had expected a tattered figure to accompany the tattered mind; a girl disheveled and bound, a fractured soul that would vomit equally-fractured insults at her... all of which would cut to the quick.

She hadn't been prepared for the perfectly-groomed, perfectly-poised Princess sitting calmly in the middle of the floor. There was something _off_ - it was like the edges of Azula's silhouette were too sharp, her lines serrated... like a poorly-done ink outline that had been allowed to bleed out. Her eyes were too bright, the smile was too full.

And she didn't say a single word.

The single sentence she'd spoken had come after weeks of visits. Sometimes Ty Lee would tell her stories about their childhood, sometimes she would tell her of the current happenings outside of her current residence - sanitized as to not disturb the Princess, of course - and sometimes she would sit in silence and wonder at the equally-quiet girl but a few feet away from her. Azula's only words had come at the end of an otherwise nondescript visit, and then she spoke no more - it was back to the status quo.

But no, it wasn't the Princess' words that had frightened her, nor the potential of what they held. It was instead the doctors - the men and women with impassive features and impassive voices, who filled Ty Lee's nose with a scent as sterile and unwelcome as the building itself. She can't help but bare her teeth sometimes, feral instinct provoked by the sanitized hands and eyes and souls of these alleged healers.

But what frightens her even more than these doctors with their Koh-blank faces are their words.

They speak to her in monotone - low, calm, and completely devoid of emotion; they stuff her ears with words such as _prognosis_ and _diagnosis_ and occasionally one will smirk something about _analgesics _and _psychotropics_ just to see her lip curl, knowing full well that Ty Lee's knowledge of the medical lexicon is nonexistent. She was able to hold herself back the one time she caught a technician casually joking with another about something called _electroconvulsive therapy_ and how they referred to the Princess as the 'lightning lord' because of it, but she cannot help herself when she finds one doctor standing before a mute Azula and telling her how fitting it would be for her to wear a crown of stitches across her forehead after he'd _lobotomized_ her.

Ty Lee doesn't know what that word means but she has a vision of scalpels and a catatonic Princess, reduced to something less than Azula and more than dead.

She finds herself flying at the doctor with a speed and accuracy that Mai's knives would have envied, and she is dragged away in such a state and manner that any visitor would have thought that Ty Lee was the madwoman. She's shrieking at Azula, words echoing down the hall:

"Don't let them take you- _live-"_

Azula blinks once, and then there is clarity in her eyes.

**...**

Ty Lee can't see the place where Azula was hospitalized from her vantage point. She can make out the palace and a few other landmarks, and the torches of the city illuminate the night like an army of a thousand dragons nestling beneath the shadow of the volcano that the capital city is built within.

She waits for Azula to arrive.

**...**

The acrobat knew Azula was going to escape - she knew it as soon as she was unceremoniously tossed from the back door of the building. And in her knowing, she ran immediately to the royal palace, stormed into a council meeting that Zuko was presiding over, threw everyone out (a few were literally bodily removed from the room) and demanded to know what, by Agni's eternal flame, a _lobotomy_ was.

And then she'd nearly performed one on Zuko when he told her.

"You'd do that to your own **sister**?" she'd shrieked, only partially aware that the only reason her fingers were not on Zuko's scalp was because Mai and a half-dozen guards were all but sitting on her to keep her down.

"I authorized no such thing!"

But by then, Azula was already free.

**...**

The city is in panic mode; the palace has gone on lockdown. Guards are stationed at every entry point. Mai, in her pregnant state, is surrounded by at least twenty elite firebenders and probably bored beyond all reason. Zuko is scouring the streets with the lordsguard, his hand-selected personal escort.

Azula could make it through all those defenses. But she's not headed, as many expect, to the heart of the Fire Nation - she isn't going to the palace to find her former friend, her brother and her crown. She does not plan to gather her supporters and lead a triumphant coup d'etat.

_She's coming up here, to the highest peak of the volcano-top, to the place with the best view of the city._ Ty Lee thinks to herself, wrapping her arms around her knees and shivering a bit. The altitude makes it a bit colder than she's used to. _She's coming up here to see the city that was once hers, and then she's going to... fly._

**...**

What Ty Lee said was "Don't let them take you- _live_-"

What Azula heard was "Don't let them take you _alive._"

**...**

There is noise behind her. Momentarily, the sound of cracked fingernails scrabbling against stone ceases, and the breathing behind her is only slightly labored - not bad for an individual locked up for six years.

Ty Lee finds herself speaking, uncharacteristically snippy as she rises and dusts the bottom of her pants off.

"You're late."

**...**

"I didn't expect to have an audience," Azula says, as if her former muteness had suddenly become deafness and Ty Lee's words had been wasted on useless ears. She moves past the acrobat - with the same grace she'd had as a fourteen-year old, and Ty Lee's chest turns into a vacuum - and looks out over the city with a satisfied twist of her lips. Ty Lee notices for the first time that her mouth is unpainted, and it scares her more than the doctors' not-there faces - for it is a corpse's pallid smile that Azula gives her.

"I didn't come here to watch you kill yourself."

"No?" Azula looks slightly disappointed, and the fear-serpent sitting in the pit of Ty Lee's stomach uncoils itself and lifts its head into her throat. "What a coincidence, then, that you just so happen to be here."

"I'm here to help you."

A dismissive wave of her hand. Azula certainly hasn't forgotten anything of pretentiousness. "That won't be necessary. You and my physicians did quite enough."

"I'm not one of your _doctors_." The comparison sickens her, and the slippery snake of fear turns into some unnamed, revolting beast with quills that poke into her lungs and tentacles that threaten to creep through her eyes. "I'm your- "

_servant - companion - ally - friend - confidante - sister - lover - something more_

"You're my...?"

Ty Lee takes a breath. "Reason to live."

Azula's eyebrows nearly shoot past her hairline. Ty Lee absently notices that even at twenty, the Princess' bangs are still much as they were - a bit longer, but symmetrical and framing either side of her face. And even at twenty, Azula is still not used to being spoken back to - even if what Ty Lee offers is not an insult but a truth. It seems that both are still offensive to the Princess if they are not issued from her own mouth.

"You. You're my reason to live." For a moment, it looks like Azula is contemplating spitting on the ground at even entertaining such a thought, but she apparently considers it too base and sneers instead. "I thought I was going to throw myself from this volcano to avoid giving my brother another victory, but I have a much more compelling reason if you are my sole reason to continue existing." Azula doesn't even wait for her words to stab into Ty Lee before continuing on. "And why is that, Ty Lee? How? **How** can you be my reason to live?"

"'Cause you're free, 'Zula." Those may be tears that gather at the corners of her eyes, but Ty Lee's no longer ashamed and no longer afraid. The Princess is indeed free - free to live her life beyond the long, long reach of Ozai's shadow. Free to dictate her own dreams and desires. Free from a life where everything, from the title she held to the beat of her heart, was decided by someone else. "You don't have to live by your father's leave. You're free."

"Ha! Tell that to Zuko and his friends. Even reformed monsters have pasts."

"They have futures, too." Ty Lee grabs Azula's hand before the Princess can protest; a bold move even now. Azula's fingers are cold, and Ty Lee feels a sudden sense of jamais vu - she's held this hand countless times before, but the touch is completely foreign to her... it is the feel of a dragon denied its claws. Ty Lee wants to fling this stranger's hand away from her, but she holds fast - she must accept responsibility for her part in its creation.

Azula looks unconvinced, and Ty Lee inches closer. Soon, her cheek is pressed up against Azula's, the soft roundness that remains in her adult face nuzzled against the high, regal angles of Azula's matured cheekbones. She is still clutching Azula's hand in hers and she notices that the Princess has gone very still - she is unsure whether it is the immobile state of a prey animal seconds before it flees, or the rigid composure of a predator a blink away from striking.

"You're free to love me back," Ty Lee breathes, and swears the fingers entwined in hers suddenly erupt with heat. _This _is the touch she remembers-

And with Ty Lee's next words, Azula understands and accepts all at once in a moment that is as simple and easy as falling in love:

**...**

_It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.  
_


	17. dangerous liaisons

prompt: NSFW

notes: took a lot of liberties with this theme. it's really not safe for... well, anyone. as an aside, that must have been one hell of a game of fireopoly.

* * *

**dangerous liaisons**

**...**

To the former traitor Ty Lee,

My dear brother Zu-Zu apparently thinks it is time for me to stop moping about the results of our Agni Kai and believes I should be out doing things a stereotypical girl of my age should be engaging in. Despite the fact that my loss was a mere three years ago, if he wants to rush my therapy then he'll have to deal with the consequences.

With that aside, he mentioned that I am seventeen years old and have not once attended this event known as a "sleep-over." Tell me what time the guest bedroom at your parents' residence will be ready and have dinner waiting when I arrive. I suspect this will be largely uneventful.

The rightful ruler of the Fire Nation,

Azula

**...**

'Zula,

This will be loads of fun! Unfortunately the guest room is being renovated, so you'll just have to share my bed for the night. Come over at seven and I'll have Fireopoly set up! Don't worry, dinner will be ready as well.

Yours,

Ty Lee

**...**

Ty Lee,

Fine.

Still the rightful Fire Lord,

Azula

**...**

Azula,

What you did to me last night was- it was beyond description! You didn't even wait until I was out of the bath before taking advantage of me and it was only by Agni's grace that we somehow made it to the bed! Half my wardrobe is in tatters or ashes, it will take another month for my new sheets to come in from the Earth Kingdom and I won't even mention what my father said when he found out what you did with the komodo-rhino fat candles that he was going to offer to Agni's temple!

I... I can't even describe what I'm feeling right now! Last night was a chain of depraved acts, one right after the other! The steam that rose from your nostrils when you were between my thighs, and the way you move the tip of your tongue- and that was only within the first thirty seconds! The things I was made to endure were what no decent noblewoman should ever have to witness, let alone suffer through! I was barely able to roll out of bed this morning and more than one servant commented that I was walking like a goose-crab... I cannot remember the last time I was treated in such a manner!

If you do not return tonight and repeat your performance I will tell Aang to take your firebending. :)

xoxoxoxo

Ty Lee

**...**

Ty Lee,

No one makes demands of me.

I am coming over promptly to rectify this transgression. Leave the front gate unlocked.

Azula

**...**

'Zula,

We should be more careful. I think someone is reading our letters.

* * *

And with that said, I desperately need to feel

reassured about our mistake. I cannot stand the thought of

your hands on my skin. I can only tremble at the

memory of that awful night, and I truly cannot stand the

idea that you will soon be near me. You must

stop this madness! Please, Princess, try to

relieve this growing ache by visiting

me only in thoughts. Any lustful desires must be tossed

through the window.

Regretfully,

Ty Lee

p.s. Have I ever told you how much I like odd numbers?

**...**

Ty Lee,

Regarding the abrupt loss of your favorite shirt-

I will have one spun from the finest silks the Fire Nation can offer and have it sent to your household with all due haste. However, it would be neglectful of me to not mention that part of the fault lies with your father - had he not interrupted in that most unwelcome fashion, I would not have seared my handprints onto your shirt in surprise, nor torn it from your body as I made my rapid departure the same way I entered - out your window.

(As an aside, I never would have made such an undignified exit had I not been concerned for your honor. Zuko told me I should take those sorts of things into consideration, and now look what it's brought me. Had I not listened, I would have soundly defeated everyone in the room and then banished them from the Fire Nation. But I digress.)

Also, trim the prickly-pear bushes that are just beneath your room. I can only alleviate my pain to a certain extent by lighting Zuko's chopsticks on fire when they're in his mouth. All else is misery.

Only with the tiniest bit of fondness, and you're still a traitor,

Azula

**...**

princess,

Regretfully, i must say that our little

Amorous adventure is at an end. my rather

Vexed father is going to read this as soon as

I finish writing, and i cannot get around it. we must

Stop seeing each other before my father tells

His majesty, lord zuko, about our liasons.

Maybe we can meet again under less romantic circumstances.

Either way, i am now forbidden from being alone in your presence.

your pLatOnic and most serVile friEnd,

ty lee

**...**

Ty Lee,

I am saddened to hear of your father's refusal to allow our involvement. Indeed, I came to call on you after receiving your missive, only to discover that he was determined to facilitate aforementioned "platonic" status by barring your windows; locking the single door to your room with an outside deadbolt, a key lock, a combination lock and a timed puzzle; and posting no less than at least three stationary guards and two moving patrols.

Really, he should know that such restrictive measures are... fire hazards.

I hope this messenger hawk finds you well. Should he find a way to get this message to you, I will have found a way in - and then no army of benders in this world or the next could keep me out.

Determinedly,

Azula

**...**

Sweet sugar cakes,

Could you please let my father out of prison? I know this might sound weird to you, but having a family member incarcerated doesn't do much to raise a girl's passions.

I'm sure you'll find him much less resistant to the idea of our relationship when he is released.

Lovingly (and giving you big cute panda cub-kitten eyes),

Ty Lee

**...**

Ty Lee,

By the time you get this, your father should be safely home. Sorry about that mess.

But do try and tell him, if he hasn't learned already, that it's not the best idea in the world to have Azula forcibly removed from your estate. You must have had some great 'sleepovers' if she took such offense that she personally threw your father in the ostrich-horse waste trench before having him dragged off to prison.

Aside from that minor incident, she seems to be in very good spirits. Keep up… whatever it is you're doing. Oh, and you don't have to tell me what it is that you're doing. In fact, I insist upon it. Don't say anything. Ever. Please.

Regards,

Zuko

**...**

Ty Lee,

Enclosed you will find a letter that I believe was intended for Azula. Please do not mix your messenger hawks up again; I cannot handle vomiting so early in the morning a second time.

"Dearest Azula,

I don't know how many more nights I can handle being shut up in this cell of a room. I got your last letter stating your intentions to find a way in, but I have seen nothing of you since then... and I have not heard from you, either. I know nothing in the universe could stop my Azula, but I have started to worry. I wonder if you are hurt, or have found a girl whose father was not quite so dead-set against her being courted by the infamous Princess Azula... honestly, I can't see why he can't overlook minor things like you throwing me in prison and your temporary insanity.

I'm blushing as I write this, but I cannot keep myself satisfied for much longer. I tried out all the different things you do to me, and I even tried to imagine that you were there, watching... I thought about the way your lips kiss a trail of heat from my chin down my throat and lower. I thought about the way you nip at me just behind my ear, making sure to catch my earlobe with your lower lip. I thought about the way your hands are so talented, guiding my legs around your waist as I pull you closer to me in order to feel every bit of my skin against yours. I thought about the way you bend me over and run a knee along the inside of my thigh, widening my stance, and the way my breath hiccups when I feel the calluses of your fingers slide up and

Sorry about the giant ink splotch at the end of that paragraph. While writing, I happened to… accidentally snap the brush in two. Please, hurry and find me - my own touch is nothing but a taunting reminder of what yours could be.

Desperately,

Ty Lee"

Thoroughly creeped out and still slightly queasy,

Mai

**...**

Ty Lee,

I expect that you will return to your father's estate sometime to receive this. I had intended to ask, in writing, if you would consider moving into the palace - Azula appears to do quite well in your company. (Almost too well, but I'm much happier to deal with that than consider the alternative.) However, I was afforded the opportunity to ask in person this morning when I went to check up on my sister and found you curled, quite happily and quite nakedly, around her.

When you bother returning home to change your clothes (if anything remain of your previous outfit, that is), please consider this the actual, formal request.

Also, if you are going to insist on sleeping naked and on top of the sheets, please do not sleep on the side facing the door. Mai's going to throw a fit if Azula tells her I've been ogling your bare bottom. Thanks.

Resigned to being your brother-in-law,

Zuko


	18. my december

prompt: winter

notes: **warning - **mentally and emotionally abusive relationship depicted in this story. I was actually inspired to write this while listening to the song mentioned below; I wanted to portray a relationship that was realistic in its depiction of the cycle of abuse. this came out almost a bit too realistic for me, so definitely skip over this one if this is the type of thing that triggers you.

* * *

**my december **

_Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, well that's alright because I like the way it hurts  
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry, well that's alright because I love the way you lie  
I love the way you lie  
_- "I Love the Way You Lie," Eminem ft. Rihanna

**...**

It's because she loves Azula.

Mai doesn't understand, and she is beginning to weary of Ty Lee coming to her with reddened eyes. "She's nothing less than abusive," the other girl spits, speaking with her teeth clamped together. "You're not weak, and you're not stupid. I don't know why you stay."

It's because Mai is deaf to the music the Princess plays.

Azula is a well-practiced orchestra conductor; she needs no rapping baton to gain Ty Lee's attention, but merely the flash of her severe eyes. Her words are what drive the music - she controls the orchestra to perfection, knowing what sections to play solo, or sometimes in harmony, or sometimes to pit against one another.

Ty Lee controls nothing. She can only watch helplessly as every last bit of herself is swept away in the symphony: her body. Her time. Her privacy. Her self-control. Her choices. Her decisions. Her worth.

_Crescendo._ When Azula doesn't like something she's wearing, or sees her out with a male friend, or when she isn't prompt enough when the Princess has a demand. _(who was that you were with last night? I'm supposed to know where you are at all times.)_

_Staccato_. The verbal barbs Azula would fling, demeaning everything from her appearance to her sister being courted by someone of low birth. _(what's the matter with you, do you want to look like a common street whore? just dress as I say; I'm trying to help you.)_

_Accelerando._ Azula raged. The accusations would build, the blame would build. Words and emotions would whip around like a crazed airbender, gathering speed and momentum from its own blind furiousness. Even the apologies had turned into pointed threats, with no veil at all to even mask their intent. Azula is done with pretense. _(I said I was sorry- __**look**__ at me when I'm talking to you-)_

_Prestissimo furioso. _Azula would take every shared secret, every known weakness, everything given to her in blind trust - and she'd reduce it to atoms in a moment where the world ceases to spin, where Ty Lee's heart stops beating, where there is nothing between them but distance and opportunity and Ty Lee wants to take both and get out, out, _**out**__-_

_(you are a disappointment. you are worthless. you are nothing and you should praise agni that i even waste my breath on you because that's what you are - a complete and utter waste.)_

And then the _coda_, always the _coda - (I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't made me lose my temper.)_

The Princess has never laid a hand on her. There are times when Ty Lee thought she would - when Azula's eyes go so large she can see the whites all around the crazed-yellow of her pupils, or when the firebender turns and abruptly smashes her hand into the wall beside them. The orchestra shrieks then; violins scraping notes serrated enough to make her bones scream, brass howling an untuned cacophony that echoes in her skull.

_(At least it wasn't you - yet.)_

And then, silence. Calm. Too-calm, as Azula stalks away and Ty Lee flees the other direction, her lungs aching from the years of unspent sobs she's let collect. She'll find Mai, and Mai will always tell her the same thing: leave.

"But I love her."

"Why?" Now Mai is angry with her, fed up, and Ty Lee is trapped - a wall of flame before her, a hissing river of lava beneath her.

"Because-"

_I care for her like you care for Zuko and though you think I'm stupid and spineless for not leaving, you could fall into the exact same cycle_

_she'll sneak me books from the royal library's private collection, and when I go through them I'll find scraps of poetry from her between the pages_

_she always remembers which desserts I like and when she invites us over for a banquet, at least one of my favorites is there_

_she kisses me and she means it_

_she knows I like to watch her practice and sometimes she'll call me over and teach me what to do, her hands so warm over mine as she shows me her forms_

_she'll look at me from across a room and smile like she's suddenly figured out what the meaning of beauty is_

_one time she hugged me after she yelled at me, and it was because I screamed at her… it was the only time I screamed at her. I screamed and wanted to know why she still kept me around if I was horrible and a mistake and a failure. and she smiled that little smile of hers and said "Because I'm holding the only thing worth holding onto"_

"- I do."

"It won't stop. _She_ won't stop." Mai looks up and away, finished with the conversation. "It's your funeral."

Ty Lee is only faintly aware that the symphony that Azula is conducting is really a dirge; she simply moves with the music, dreamily following it to the final note. When she looks in a mirror she sees that her eyes look slightly glazed over - but it's not sleep, it's not stress. It's the frost settling over the orchestra as Azula compels her on, it's the layers of ice laid so carefully over one another that not even Azula notices the change in temperature when her eyes bore into Ty Lee's ice-blank gaze.

It's Ty Lee slowly freezing from within, all at once glacier-solid and snowflake-fragile. And soon enough , it really won't be Ty Lee. Sure, it'll look like Ty Lee. It'll speak Ty Lee's words with Ty Lee's mouth, it'll do acrobatics with its Ty Lee hands and arms. It'll have Ty Lee's agility and quickness. It'll have that Ty Lee scent and Ty Lee giggle. It'll cry Ty Lee tears when Azula devours her heart, and it'll say _I love you_ in Ty Lee's ever-hopeful voice.

The real Ty Lee won't be there.

When Azula had first acknowledged her feelings, Ty Lee thought their love was their own personal sun - all tender heat and humid kisses and fiery passion. And when the last of Ty Lee's soul ices over, the real Ty Lee will be entombed in an eternal blizzard, ever-dying, a soft smile etched on her face as her frozen-open eyes continue staring at the horizon for the first signs of a morning that will never arrive.

The orchestra plays on.


	19. the house that milgram built

prompt: bloodlust

notes: not sadism and not masochism, but there's plenty o' whipping going on. yes, literal whipping. no, I don't know what's wrong with me; this one seriously came out of nowhere and bit me on the butt until I wrote it.

the milgram experiment is a famous (or infamous) study on obedience to authority and how far people are willing to go. look it up if you're so inclined.

* * *

**the house that milgram built**

**...**

"I ... could feel only the shapeless weight of pain, not tearing claws, for which I had prepared, but a gradual cracking apart of my whole being by some too-great force whose waves rolled up my spine til they were pent within my brain, to clash terribly together."  
- T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

**...**

1. The first time, she thinks Ozai has ordered it.

They pass portraits of the royal line on the way to the catacombs beneath the palace. Those of Sozin's blood are almost a breed in and of themselves - the elegant facial build; the full, mocking mouths; the eyes that glistened like summer honey laid over serpent's poison. The royals of the past jeer at her as Azula leads her into the belly of the earth - "No one can hear you scream down here," the Princess casually informs her - and into a nondescript room. There are two large wooden posts in the center of the room with a rope strap hanging from each of them and a long table in the back. Ty Lee starts when they approach the table. Those are-

"Here," Azula says, thrusting something into her hands before peeling off her shirt. The Princess' voice is clinical, detached; Ty Lee's knuckles whiten with stupefied disbelief as she inspects the implement in her hands. A thin but sturdy bone handle, wrapped in hide. The leather tapering off the bone to form a- a _lash_-

Azula is standing between the two posts, wrapping the strips of rope once around her hands. It allows her to use the posts to support her weight. Her back is to Ty Lee, exposing pure, unblemished flesh.

Before the acrobat can quit the place, before she can beg Azula to not make her do this, the Princess speaks once more. "Do not tell my father of this."

Ty Lee can only watch as her hand rises, as if against her will. It draws back, and-

**...**

2. The second time, she thinks that Azula is trying to train herself.

The portraits of Fire Lords and Ladies past look more suspicious now. They squint at her, shadows forming in the corners of their eyes and mouths. She thinks that their nostrils flare; perhaps they can scent their progeny's blood on her fingers. Last time she spent three hours scrubbing her hands; it had only taken five minutes for all of Azula's blood to leave her skin.

Guilt and horror are more stubborn things, and require more than soap and water and three hours to discourage.

Azula takes no notice of the acrobat's discomfort. It is the same thing: the same tool, the same almost-ceremonial removal of the shirt, the same stiff-legged stance Azula takes between the posts.

_She is training,_ Ty Lee reasons. _This is no different than what she does in the courtyard. This is the same as the forms she runs through, simply another physical test to steel her will and endurance. What has Ozai said - that pain is weakness leaving the body? Azula detests anything and everything weak, so it only makes sense that she would want-_

"Hurry up. You're wasting time I could be using for practice."

**...**

3. The third time, she thinks that Azula derives pleasure from it.

The portraits are less upset now, and more contemptuous. They sneer from their vantage points over her; their lips curl over faded shark-white teeth and their forever-unblinking eyes burn scornfully into her own wide, haunted gaze. Twice now has she near-shredded her skin to rid herself of the memory of Azula's blood dripping over her own whole flesh, and twice now has she been denied the bliss of forgetfulness.

She knows the exact moment her courage will swell; it is the second Azula turns from her to remove her shirt. The words rise strong from her throat then - _Stop this - _but they are never afforded the opportunity to leave her mouth.

For when Azula turns to look at her from her place between the posts, Ty Lee is as mute as the portraits that judge and damn her.

_She enjoys this,_ Ty Lee thinks. _A life built up of nothing but trials and perfection and the Fire Lord; if she fails at the first two she is nothing to the last. Is it any surprise that she would find pleasure in pain? Any surprise that the only rapture in her life comes from her own suffering? She is a twisted, sick thing; shaped and molded and taught to love it - to become it. But what sort of passion can she find at the kiss of a whip, when my own kisses could-_

Azula says nothing this time, but there is cold - cold in her eyes and in her touch, and in the ghost of a kiss she gives Ty Lee afterward.

**...**

4. The fourth time, she thinks it is for the pain.

Hostility is what she sees now in those portraits, in the features of ink and dye. Eyes filled with contempt, drowning her in silent accusations just as surely as any waterbender could manage. She feels her lungs filling with leaden fright, and stays within Azula's shadow - she does not want to see the scowls etched upon their parchment faces; she does not want to acknowledge that she can offer no plea other than 'guilty.'

She has grown experienced with the lash now, a talent which she despises with every fiber of her being. _Why me?_ she thinks to herself, the cracking of the whip as familiar to her as her own steady heartbeat. _Why me?_ she demands, the strip of leather moving through the air with a grace that makes it seem an extension of her own limb. _Why me?_ she shrieks, watching the stretch and twist of Azula's muscles every time dead hide meets living skin.

And then she answers her own question: _Why not me?_

_She hates this,_ Ty Lee ponders. _She despises it worse than I do, but she must suffer it. For she does not know pain. When has she ever felt a moment of discomfort as the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation? When has a demand of hers failed to be met? When has she ever been struck, wounded, scarred, on the field of battle? Pain is foreign to her. She must taste it, know it, know what her soldiers go through... for without the heat of the fire and the blow of the hammer, there is no iron._

And then Azula speaks in a voice so low Ty Lee knows she was not meant to hear: "Pain is not a path I would willingly choose. But there is no other way..."

**...**

5. The fifth time, she thinks it is to mark Azula's body.

She does not know what emotion it is that freezes the portrait's faces over, but it is some horrific mix of blind agony and howling rage. Eyes sunken in so far she sometimes thinks there are no eyes at all, but colorless vacuums that draw her in, feeding off her shame. Mouths twisted in animal snarls, wondering at the blasphemy she is visiting upon the body of one of their line - profaning the dirt with the royal blood that she draws.

Sometimes she wonders, during an idle moment when the lash is suspended in the air and Azula's back is tensed for another blow, why the Princess chose this weapon. It is strangely free of ornamentation, though there is no lack of others decorated with as much wealth as a poorer household might see in a month's wages. It is unlike Azula to pick something so... so _plain_.

The style is simple, as well. There are others to tease her imagination - whips that were uncoiled to form nine separate tails, whips with barbs and pieces of metal embedded at the tips, whips that were as thick as her forearm and looked like they were used to drive beasts instead of men.

_She wants to tell a tale,_ Ty Lee muses to herself. _A story, a map - these smears of blood are words, the open wounds form sentences. No member of the royal family is permitted to be marked with ink, so she will use the canvas of her back to paint a story, a symbol. To her foes, it will say that she has known and endured worse than could ever be inflicted by them. To her soldiers, it will say that she was willing to do anything, give everything, in the pursuit of glory. And to me, it will say... it will say that I-_

"By Agni! Do you want to scar me permanently?"

**...**

6. The sixth time, she thinks it is to achieve a higher state of being.

The portraits are sullen, unwilling to understand. If last time they were a gnashing tempest now they are a moody fog that sits obstinate into the afternoon, refusing to lift. Their faces are drawn and grey, brittle skin stretched over thin bone; their features are pinched - pale lips pulled tight; pained gazes looking to the side and away.

She'd tried to justify all the former reasons to herself. She'd _tried._ She'd even invaded the royal palace library without anyone in the royal family knowing - a serious breach of protocol - and had swung from bookshelf to bookshelf, her eyes intent on the tomes on the highest shelves, the ones that had laid there unused for as long as she'd known life.

There was nothing in the scrolls and books of science - nothing that she could understand, anyway. Nothing to explain the inexplicable to her, nothing to tell her why the Princess' blood ran crimson on her hands even in her sleep. But then her eye had fallen upon a reading of a different sort… a religious text.

_She wants to transcend the mortal,_ Ty Lee sings to herself. _She wants to become more than we are, more than our pitiful earth-bound shells make us! The mystics of old, in the time before time, ate nothing and drank nothing and danced and lashed themselves into a frenzy to get but one glimpse of the divine. Azula wants more, she always has... she wants to _become_ the divine! Look, the drops of blood like so many prayer beads - the Princess desires enlightenment that can only be provided from the Spirit World, and I am but the means to get her to-_

"Are you reciting some sort of... prayer? It is just you and I - Agni does not dwell in places like this."

**...**

7. The seventh time, she does not think.

She does not look up at the portraits as they pass by. She keeps her eyes trained on the ground beneath them, plodding along like any mindless beast of burden made to do its master's will. Azula has broken her, utterly defeated her - she could have lived with any cause for this torment, no matter how mad or sadistic or far-fetched... but the Princess has denied her an answer. That is the one thing she cannot live with: the fact that she hurts the single being the loves more than herself for absolutely no reason at all.

She takes up the hateful tool of pain and pulls her arm back mechanically. The lash is about to descend, and then-

- Azula turns to face her.

It is only Ty Lee's finely-honed instincts that save Azula's face. The acrobat's arm jerks back as if bloodbended and her numbed fingers fly open to let the handle drop; she frantically debates snatching at it in mid-air but the time her brain has made the decision, the lash has snapped harmlessly a few inches away from the Princess' right cheek and tumbles onto the ground. Azula eyes the fallen whip with disdain; Ty Lee stares at it as if it might come to life and spit venom in her face.

"I..." Ty Lee finally raises her eyes to stare Azula in the face; fright and loathing morph into reproachful regret. "I could have hit your face! How could you just-"

"You wouldn't have." Azula says, dismissing her fears with a calm lift of her shoulder, and the incident ceases to exist.

"How could you make me do that to you? Why would you do that to yourself? Do you know what you put me through? I hated it, I _hated_ it!" Ty Lee is trying to hold her tears back, trying not to look weak in front of Azula - if there's anything the Princess despises, it's weakness - but it's too much now, the water burning in her eyes like Azula's blood burned on her skin. She raises a hand, feebly tries to wipe the drops from her lashes-

- but Azula's thumbs do the task instead. The Princess is careful, if not gentle.

"Ty Lee, what's that they say about absolute power?"

"That it corrupts absolutely?" Ty Lee spits, and waits to be immolated. Instead, her reward is Azula's amused smirk.

"You know you have absolute power when you have the power to give it up... absolutely." A breath passes between them before Azula continues. "Father once told me about the nobles. He said, 'Wait until you are completely at their mercy. A cowardly noble will stab you in the back. A true noble will stab you in the front.' You did as I ordered, but you did not take advantage."

"I didn't stab you at all. So what does that make me?"

"Worthy enough to be... royalty."

**...**

8. There is no eighth time.

They return to the room one final time, and do nothing more than silently observe for a few moments before returning the way they came. When the pair initially passed the line of royal paintings and their judgmental eyes, Ty Lee lacked the courage to look up, afraid of what Azula's bold proclamation might provoke. She feels just as gutless when returning to the main floor of the palace.

It is a sorry sight they make, the wounded Princess and her acrobat, slowly making their way back to the main floor of the palace. One is half-doubled over from weeks of self-ordered torment, all to drive Ty Lee's loyalty to its limits and test her trust in the girl. Her back is beaten - badly - but it will heal, and her skin will reveal no secrets to the casual observer. The other is still wretched, still upset, but relieved that her trials are over - though in no way does she believe this is the last test that Azula will put her through. They are a far cry from the majestic, aloof Fire Lords and Ladies whose watchful gaze they pass beneath.

_Azula always lies,_ Ty Lee discourages herself. _My family, though noble, is of no great importance in the Fire Lord's court. Powerful as she might be, the Princess cannot magically turn me into royalty. She'd have to convince her father to adopt me, or take me as a ward - hah! - or she would have to... she'd have to ask for my hand, but that's... that's just silly. There is no way that Ozai, let alone his royal ancestry, would bless such a thing. Azula always lies._

As they reach the end of the hallway, Ty Lee finally sneaks a quick glance behind her, at the generations of Fire Nation nobility that came well before her bloodline was even a thought. At best she hopes for a truce; though naïve, she knows enough about the royal bloodline to know forgiveness and understanding are alien to them. But what she sees steals her breath away:

They are bowing.


	20. high school MUSICal

prompt: high school

notes: clearly, all my friends and I did in high school was discuss music, make fun of one another, and try and bait each other into revealing juicy secrets. mai's in top form here.

* * *

**high school MUSICal**

**...**

_You have now entered _[Everything Is Hotter In The Fire Nation].

P!nkAura4Eva: azulaaaaaa! :D :D :D  
VeniVidiVici: What is it now?  
a MAI zing: Thank Agni you're finally in here. She refused to say anything until you were. Not that I care either way, it's so boring in this class. Too bad I'm stuck across the hall from you two.  
VeniVidiVici: Ty Lee, why are we in this chat room?  
P!nkAura4Eva: o i dunno... this lesson is soooo boring and i had nothing else 2 do  
a MAI zing: ...seriously?  
VeniVidiVici: Ugh. And I was busy searching for the latest Pachelbel album off iTunes before I was interrupted.  
a MAI zing: You have got to be kidding. First of all, there is no 'latest album' from Pachelbel, given that he's been dead for *several hundred years.* Second, he's a one-hit wonder. The only song I know is 'Canon in D'. Third, we all know you pretend to like classical music, but I've seen your supposedly-secret playlists on iTunes.  
VeniVidiVici: He is not a one-hit wonder, he's composed several  
VeniVidiVici: Wait  
VeniVidiVici: What secret playlists?  
P!nkAura4Eva: i wanna see!  
a MAI zing: We're going to play this little game, are we? Link me to your iTunes.  
VeniVidiVici: Fine. What's your handle?  
a MAI zing: ...  
a MAI zing: CantReadMaiPokerFace  
VeniVidiVici: ... you have no right to talk about my alleged 'playlists.'  
P!nkAura4Eva: i made it up for her! do u like it?  
a MAI zing: The obvious mispronunciation of my name aside, it is pretty witty... for Ty Lee.  
VeniVidiVici: It's... mediocre. Ty Lee, what's your handle?  
P!nkAura4Eva: BendMeShapeMe  
P!nkAura4Eva: oh! r u 'TheRoofIsOnFire'?  
VeniVidiVici: Clearly.  
a MAI zing: See! Run DMC, NWA, Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, The Fugees… hardly a representation of the baroque period, Azula.  
VeniVidiVici: Listen. Hip-hop and rap are misunderstood and commonly derided as preaching nothing but the objectification of women, the violence of the 'streets' and glorifying a lifestyle of drugs and weapons. If you listen closely to the music of the '80s and early '90s, however, you will find that several of these groups are but unleashing decades of pent-up frustration with regards to institutionalized racism and the seemingly never-ending cycle of poverty; the latter is subject to interpretation but the former is  
P!nkAura4Eva: ooooh i see that drake song! play it play it play it  
VeniVidiVici: ... and there goes the rest of my explanation, given this instant messenger's character limit and Ty Lee's inappropriate interruption.  
P!nkAura4Eva: sorry azula D: but since u have itunes up can you plz play the song  
a MAI zing: I doubt that a sudden egalitarian spirit and a desire to understand the issues of the common people are what motivated you, Azula. More like you enjoy the 'alpha dog' politics of the rap game and the verbal skewers they spit at one another. And *why* have you played 'Find Your Love' 583 times?**  
**VeniVidiVici: I like the song.  
P!nkAura4Eva: azula play it!  
a MAI zing: You like the message that you're 'more than just an option' for our pink-clad friend, or you like the fact that said pink-clad friend just so happens to sit in front of you and twitches her hips to the beat when she can hear it?  
VeniVidiVici: Mai, I will ruin your soul if you continue down this road.  
P!nkAura4Eva: pleeeeeease  
VeniVidiVici: ... fine.  
a MAI zing: The prosecution rests her case.  
VeniVidiVici: Ugh, it's better than hearing Ke$ha drone out of Ty Lee's computer between classes. If given the choice between waking up as a waterbender and listening to any more of that drivel, I'd…  
a MAI zing: You'd?  
P!nkAura4Eva: TIK TOK ON THE CLOCK YEA THE PARTY DONT STOP  
a MAI zing: ...  
VeniVidiVici: ...  
VeniVidiVici: ... take a third option, which is that I'd simply have to kill myself.  
a MAI zing: Ah, but you'd never be able to watch Ty Lee's hips gyrating in her seat when you put on a new Lil Wayne song if you died. I see that 'Lollipop' has been played 498 times.  
VeniVidiVici: Mai, I swear by Agni's stinking sooty breath…  
a MAI zing: And what's this? A playlist full of Adam Lambert, Madonna, Melissa Etheridge… I didn't even know k. d. lang *made* a cover of 'Sex on Fire.'  
P!nkAura4Eva: who is kd lang? azula what is mai talking about?  
VeniVidiVici: Don't pay her any mind.  
P!nkAura4Eva: ?  
VeniVidiVici: Just ignore her. And Mai, I want you quieter than the southern Air Temple.  
a MAI zing: How impotent your threats are today, Azula. "That ***** in my mouth had me lost for words," indeed.  
VeniVidiVici: Remember, you brought this upon yourself.  
a MAI zing: I quiver with fear.  
VeniVidiVici: Zuko listens to country.  
P!nkAura4Eva: :O  
a MAI zing: You  
a MAI zing: lie.  
VeniVidiVici: Come on, look at his life. His mother is missing and/or dead, his father hates him, he has no friends save a failure of an uncle, his face is ruined, he's been banished from the Fire Nation on a fool's errand… all he needs is for his ferret-puppy to die and he has all the ingredients for a country hit. Who knows, maybe he'll call it 'Agni Take The Wheel.'  
a MAI zing: You always lie.  
P!nkAura4Eva: now that u mention it i thought i heard johnny ca$h coming from his room once  
VeniVidiVici: It's not 'Ca$h.' It's just 'Cash.'  
P!nkAura4Eva: y not? it has to do with money. and it looks much awesomer that way! D:  
VeniVidiVici: ... never mind.  
a MAI zing: I don't believe this...  
VeniVidiVici: Aww, does it pain your heart knowing that he secretly loathed listening to your Puscifer and whatever-project-Trent-Reznor's-cooked-up-these-days albums? He probably replaces your portrait with a Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus poster once you leave the palace.  
a MAI zing: Then I'm glad Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift! And Miley Cyrus is nothing but a Christina Aguilera 2.0 in the making.  
P!nkAura4Eva: i like them both! Xtina is a fighter and miley cant be taaaaamed  
VeniVidiVici: Why, Agni, why? What have I done to deserve this?  
a MAI zing: I think the appropriate question should be, 'What _haven't_ I done to deserve this?'  
P!nkAura4Eva: I CANT BE BLAAAAAAAAAMED  
a MAI zing: For what, Ty Lee? For completely bewitching the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation? How does that line go again, Azula? I see you have Pride and Prejudice on audiotape. "You have completely bewitched me, body and soul..."  
VeniVidiVici: I...  
VeniVidiVici: You two are being completely asinine. I'm signing off.

_[VeniVidiVici has left the room.]_

a MAI zing: Ty Lee.  
P!nkAura4Eva: ya?  
a MAI zing: I had her. I had her gift-wrapped and hand-delivered into your grasp. All you had to do was give her one tiny push…  
P!nkAura4Eva: i dunno, i got nervous D:  
a MAI zing: For Agni's sake, there wasn't even any subtext in that entire conversation. It was just 'text.' In bold, all-capital letters. Not even *you* can be that dense.  
P!nkAura4Eva: sorry!  
a MAI zing: You pushed me to do this. You planned this thing out for _weeks._ Ugh. I'm finished with your schemes.  
a MAI zing: I'm so glad I'm not physically in you and Azula's class. I'm logging off, and the next time you drag me into one of your romantic plots, try and follow through.  
P!nkAura4Eva: i said sorry.  
a MAI zing: Whatever.

_[a MAI zing has left the room.]_

P!nkAura4Eva: sorry mai! i went to the bathroom right after azula signed off  
P!nkAura4Eva: mai?  
P!nkAura4Eva: wait  
P!nkAura4Eva: i  
P!nkAura4Eva:  
P!nkAura4Eva: oh agni.

_[P!nkAura4Eva has left the room.]_


	21. with your shield or on it

prompt: roleplay

notes: the prompt kind of gives this one away. I clearly know nothing about azula's armor, how it's put together, or what the respective pieces are called. run awaaaaay =====\o/

is it sad that if she were any other stereotypical girl whose significant other is going off to war (and trying not to think about how said significant other is at a critical disadvantage), ty lee would be putting on her girlfriend's t-shirt and listening to trey songz' "your side of the bed" on repeat as she cries herself to sleep? loving azula makes things so much more complicated.

if you *really* want to know what ty lee is feeling like, go watch the music video (for the subject matter, and to get in the mood) and then listen to the song as she dresses herself. if you don't end up half as distraught as she is, you lack a heart. so essentially you're azula, and that's actually pretty cool.

* * *

**with your shield or on it**

**...**

Azula always put her boots on first.

They were incredible pieces of workmanship, though probably one of the most overlooked parts of her uniform. The Princess appreciated good boots, though - she'd spoken with enough soldiers to hear how their boots could mean the difference between a victory and a loss. They protected against the elements, fought off nature's stones and thorns, shielded foot wounds from exposure and thus infection. Properly broken in, they would not bruise or blister. A good soldier understood the value of their boots, made sure they were well-crafted, and cared for them as a couple might dote on their firstborn child.

It was only a logical assumption that the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation would tolerate nothing less than complete excellence - to include her footwear.

The greaves come next. Shin armor fastened around toned calves, in order to defend her lower legs. A strike to the head or heart might kill, but she was at a significant disadvantage if her legs were cut out beneath her. It wasn't to say that losing her footing would mean automatic death; the Princess was far too good for _that. _However, she was willing to put up with the burden of additional weight for the tactical advantage of ensuring her lower legs remained unharmed - after all, not having one's knees available during battle was quite the inconvenience.

Then come the faulds, the skirt-like piece that circled her waist and rested over her upper thighs. They were solid pieces of armor, surprisingly lighter than they appeared. The individual who had crafted this piece had known his subject well - it was not attached as one solid piece but instead split, to allow freedom of movement. It was durable, to afford adequate protection against both physical and elemental blows. And it was strikingly simple but regal at the same time - no design or ornamentation save the gold trim on obsidian-black plate.

The cuirass is after that; for a breastplate, it's surprisingly overshadowed by the next piece of armor to come. It comes down over the top of her head and has two smaller pieces that afford protection to her chest and upper ribs. The piece wraps around in the back - the Princess has organs back there, and a spine, after all - and it is secured in place by her belt, which makes it appear as if her chestplate and faulds are one long extension of onyx armor. She is loath to put her fingers on it; the piece is carefully polished to a degree that it reflects light in a way that would make Sozin's Comet envious… but on it goes.

The pauldrons settle atop her shoulders - large, thick semicircles that curled over her upper arms and had larger plates atop those, overlaying her shoulders and chest. It is this piece that is the most noticeable and arguably the most imposing: the armor is all points and angles, devastatingly sharp like dragon fangs or Azula's tongue; the wideness of the plates makes her shoulders appear broader. The collar fastens together in the front, enclosing her throat and neck, and the precious arteries and veins that lie within.

Wandering fingertips slide over the outline of the Princess' crown. Her hair is not up yet but that would just require an order and a moment of nervous activity from one of the nearby servants, and then that gleaming gold jewel, symbol of the Fire Nation and all its majesty, would be-

"Good evening, Princess."

Ty lee whips around to face Azula; the Princess has just returned from her bath. There is a quizzical look on Azula's unadorned face, but sinister amusement replaces it faster than Ty Lee can rip the plate from her body. Azula walks up to her in slow, measured steps and without pause, circles around the acrobat's armored form, not stopping until she has done a full rotation and is facing Ty Lee once more.

"You forgot something," Azula says noncommittally, and Ty Lee's lungs momentarily forget how to work. She is built differently than the Princess - she is an acrobat, not a firebender. She is more muscular in some places and less so in others, and on top of that she's growing into curves that the leaner firebender lacks. The greaves are too tight around her calves, and her waist is wider - the belt pinches uncomfortably just above her hips. Azula's shoulders are just a touch thicker, but to Ty Lee the pauldrons feel almost comical on her. The acrobat bites her lip and waits miserably for the mocking to begin, and for once she can't blame Azula - she feels like an awful caricature of the Princess, a bumbling platypus-bear trying to squeeze into the splendor of a dragon's scales.

Instead of scathing words, Azula reaches for her face. Ty Lee shuts her eyes, anticipating some form of physical punishment - and the feel of lipstick pressing against her mouth is so unexpected, so _kind_ of Azula that Ty Lee's knees nearly give beneath her. She's shaking so badly she swears she'll look even more the fool when the Princess is finished with her, but Azula manages perfectly - as usual.

"There." Azula notes when she's finished, and her lips twist into an unusual smile that could almost be called gentle on a less severe girl.

"Don't go," Ty Lee whispers in response, and is too terrified to look away from Azula's intense gaze.

"Why are you troubled?" The Princess finally turns her back on Ty Lee, and thank Agni for that because Ty Lee can finally inhale once more. There is a note of vague annoyance in Azula's voice when she resumes speaking. "The eclipse will hinder me, but it will take more than a passing shadow to defeat me. Our plans have been meticulously thought-out. You and Mai taught me well. What is there to fear?"

"I fear that you don't fear enough." Ty Lee manages, somehow able to find her voice beneath all the uncertainty and Azula's armor. It is true: the Princess is wound tight with an eager energy, practically sparking with it; she's had to consciously keep herself from generating electricity in anticipation of the coming assault. The Princess is always calculating, ever the tactician, but for the first and only time she can remember, Ty Lee fears that Azula has not taken the risks into the consideration they deserve. "I could stay-"

"Everyone is to evacuate. Including yourself." Mai has long since departed, having left the Princess with a few of her knives and, in a rare occurrence, verbally gave Azula her well-wishes. Ty Lee has lingered, trying to stay inconspicuous as plans were gone over, altered, gone over again, dismissed, reinstated, and finally agreed upon. Even her own family has departed, tired of waiting for their straggling daughter.

Ty Lee knows she shouldn't argue anymore. She knows Azula needs to prepare for battle tomorrow; she needs food, and rest. She risks trying the Princess' temper should she continue to insist upon remaining; she is fully aware that she might attract Lord Ozai's unfavorable attention should she overstay her welcome - which she is flirting dangerously with, especially as the afternoon grows shorter.

"Ty Lee." Azula tosses her head at the door. As expected, both her eyes and her words are sharp, made so by the acrobat's impertinence. "Take my armor off and go."

Silently, sullenly, Ty Lee does so. She keeps her eyes on the floor as she undresses and takes her time replacing everything on the armor stand. She does not know if Azula is watching her and though she cannot say if it is despair or spite, she cannot find it in herself to care.

Ty Lee has almost reached the door, when- "And why, exactly, were you dressed in my armor?"

The acrobat knows that if she replies truthfully, it would take a power beyond what the Avatar was capable of bending to make her leave. So she decides to remain quiet, and surely she will infuriate the Princess further for she is pushing the door open, leaving without granting Azula a response-

Suddenly, there is a hand sneaking under her arm and snaking up over her chest; a palm comes to rest flat against her heart. Azula is behind her, so close that Ty Lee can feel the bright thunder of her blood, the burn of the Princess' wolfsgold eyes against the back of her neck. They have been close before - closer than this, even. They have gone back-to-back in schoolyard brawls and while fighting the Avatar and his allies. They have huddled together in the wilds while it rained, nostrils full of the scent of forest and ozone and sweat. They have placed hands on each other to help heal injuries, quickly treating bloody wounds from both man and nature before they could scar over; leaving only a temporary, blunt pain as testament to their travels.

But they have never been as **close** to each other as they are now.

Azula's fingertips curl inward just the tiniest bit so that Ty Lee can feel them against her skin, grabbing at her heart. "You're afraid." Azula comments, her voice unusually low. Ty Lee feels as if Azula is drawing her most personal, private thoughts out with the connection of that one hand against her chest, just as easily as the Princess summons flame. The acrobat is flushed, humiliated, but Azula keeps on: "You think that boy and his allies will best me because I lack my firebending. You think, in that most secret corner of your mind that even you are sometimes afraid of, that they might win."

Ty Lee wonders if Azula can feel her heart stop.

The Princess makes a noise that almost sounds like a chuckle, and her breath tickles the soft hairs on the nape of Ty Lee's neck.

"I have a far more compelling reason than they do to return victorious. I have-"

**...**

That night, when Ty Lee reunites with her family, they all notice something different about her:

Her father notices that her eyes are bright, almost too-bright, as if she were intoxicated - but her breath does not stink of cactus juice, nor any other spirit the Fire Nation offers.

Her mother notices that instead of staying up and chatting happily, as she would normally do, Ty Lee promptly retires to bed. Her family sees neither hair nor toe of her until the next day.

Her sisters notice the lipstick on her face, something highly unusual - they all wear makeup and thus she has scorned it, reveling in her individuality… at least until now. The application of the lipstick is perfect, highlighting the generous curves of her lips without overcompensating and making her seem like she should be back at the circus. They know she can't have put it on, but the real question is… why hasn't she removed it?

But it is only her youngest sister that notices the lipstick _isn't_ perfect - there's the tiniest smudge at the right corner, as if someone else's lips had just barely brushed over that spot before pulling away. She goes to question her older sister, but Ty Lee's family is nobility and their temporary living facility is well-constructed. The doors are solid and the locks are sure, and Ty Lee's sister leaves disappointed.

Ty Lee is curled up in bed. Momentarily, she will sleep; when she does, nightmares will not plague her. She will not worry, restless, into the early hours of the next morning.

She stretches her hand out, as if to touch the phantom form of someone who is in bed beside her. And in her mind, she repeats Azula's last words to her, more than a promise and falling just short of an admission:

_... I have someone waiting for me._


	22. loveGame: going Gaga

notes: seven prompts, one line each, one hundred words per story. an interlude to try and snap me out of a case of writer's block so I can finally finish up a stand-alone story that's been staring me in the face. I actually, uh, wasn't listening to any Lady Gaga when writing these. also, if you do not know who Lady Gaga is, you are... beyond my reach. I am sorry, friend.

**loveGame - going GaGa**

**...****  
**

**

* * *

just dance** - _wish I could shut my playboy mouth_

She wished Ty Lee would make her envy less noticeable. Did she have to sulk as if her bunny-puppy had just fallen over dead? Azula could not control who her father kept at court; it was not her fault if the noblemen's daughters were drawn to her like moths to a...

The obvious metaphor was, well... obvious.

"I know what you tell them," Ty Lee hisses, like a serpent in the dark. "Now tell me something. Tell me you don't care about me, and you can have them to the last girl."

And for once, Azula has nothing to say.

**...**

**paparazzi** - _I'm your biggest fan I'll follow you until you love me_

_Peculiar,_ Azula decided. That was the perfect description of that girl with the grey eyes. _Peculiar._

At seven years old the Princess had only made a few public appearances, usually standing by her father's side or being paraded around town. But those eyes were always there; where she saw fear mixed with respect in other peoples' gazes, there was nothing but pure, unfiltered adulation in this girl's eyes.

Azula doesn't like it. The girl drank her in too thirstily, too greedily. She delved too deep.

"Stop looking at me," the Princess barks. A pause, and then: "Who are you, anyway?"

**...**

**poker face** - _and baby when it's love if it's not rough it isn't fun_

Mai doesn't say anything at first, chalking it up to pampered skin more used to satin pillows as opposed to cold dirt.

But when the blotches on the Princess start resembling fingerprints, Mai wonders about the 'training' Ty Lee is giving Azula.

Speckles across her collarbone and along the backs of her shoulders; a thumbprint on the side of her neck. Welts down her forearms. And that's only on the skin she can _see._

"You're hurt," she notes one morning. Ty Lee is still asleep.

Azula smirks and practically purrs: "Hurts so _good._"

Mai does not mention the bruises anymore.

**...**

**bad romance** - _I want your love and I want your revenge_

_You shouldn't be here,_ the disapproving press of Azula's lips says. _This place isn't for you._

Azula derisively calls it a zoo, a place to view an imprisoned beast. Ty Lee stares through the bars, tries to imagine she's safe... but even in defeat, Azula knows just how to twist Ty Lee's heart at her whim. She knows exactly what to say.

"I'm not for you."

_Lies,_ Ty Lee breathes, and reaches- but Azula's back is to her, to redemption.

And never has Ty Lee desired anything more than this: to be within that cage, within Azula's deadly, loving grasp.

**...**

**alejandro** - _at this point I gotta choose, nothing to lose_

10. Spring in the palace gardens. Azula's onyx hair so bright.

9. Childish wrestling in the grass. She doesn't mind the stains.

8. Summer heat, summer humidity - almost as sticky as their ice-treats.

7. Swimming in the lake; warm hands grabbing her waist - unexpected but not unwelcome.

6. Exasperated with her braid, fingertips instead exploring the nape of her neck.

5. Preadolescent giggling at yet another prank played on Mai.

4. Waking in a shirt that isn't hers; Azula never demands it back.

3. Ten seconds. A choice between two friends, and no time to decide, only to remember.

2._ please don't make me, please-_

1. Time's up.**  
**

**...****  
**

**telephone** - _stop calling, stop calling, I don't wanna think anymore_

The guards tell her that Ty Lee isn't screaming, but Azula knows they're lying.

It doesn't matter that the Princess ordered her former friend gagged, or that she and Mai must be miles away by now. She can _hear_ her. She can hear Ty Lee shrieking: a wild, wavering sound that would drive any sane man to suicide.

To make it worse, it is her own name howled like a mantra, broken into three syllables:

_A - zu - la_

She doesn't let it disturb her calm. Paranoia gives life to deafness, and Azula cannot hear truth:

_I - love - you_

**...**

**teeth** - _I'm gonna love you with my hands tied_

"Have her as your mistress," Ozai tells her, not even looking up from the map he's studying. "_Keep_ her as your mistress, for all I care. But know that she has not the title, nor the power, to be worthy of being your spouse."

_I am bound to my duty_, she rehearses in her head, fingers idly playing with Ty Lee's hair. _And you to yours. You may stay, for a while. But that is the way it must be._

But when the pink ribbon ends up tightly wound around the Princess' wrist, she lacks the desire to pull free.


	23. carry on wayward son

notes: the first story of 2011 and I have to go kick Azula in the junk. hard. less soul-sucking content coming soon.

* * *

**carry on wayward son**

and now, when all is gone and there is nothing to say  
and if you're done with embarrassing me...  
Impossible / Shontelle

I'm staring down the barrel of a .45  
I'm swimming through the ashes of another life  
.45 / Shinedown

*******

Azula is too good, and that is her most fundamental and fatal flaw.

*******

That is not to say that Azula is kind, or even remotely close to being kind. She isn't positive, she isn't generous, she isn't agreeable. She's _good_ - too good.

Too good to be institutionalized for long. She's out in less than a year; not complete and yet completely Azula. She's a relic of war, a reminder of bloodier times, and they keep her confined to the palace - for her own safety or everyone else's, one cannot say.

Too good to notice the passing of time. She blinks and she is twenty and a paragon of classic beauty. All long, sculpted limbs, elegant cheekbones and a strong brow that highlights the severity of her eyes. She has suitors - timid at first, and few in number; their ranks swell upon her apparent rebuffs, each determined to outlast the other - while in fact, she hasn't been spurning them at all. She hasn't even taken notice of them.

Too good for whatever drivel is spilling out of Zuko's mouth.

"We received a wedding invitation from Ty Lee." A pause, as the Fire Lord tries to gauge his sister's reaction. It's surprisingly difficult to do when all he has to go off of is the back of her head. His next words are careful - almost as careful as he is with his newborn son. "You're invited, too."

Azula folds her hands behind her head and starts laughing. She doesn't stop until long after Zuko has left the room.

*******

Azula is too good. Too good for these visions that have plagued her since her defeat.

She is fifteen and sitting to pour herself tea - she has long since become self-sufficient, given the indifference of the staff at the hospital. She waits for the liquid to cool before lifting the cup to her lips,

_but before she can take a sip her peace is rudely shattered by the neverending babble of her irritatingly cheerful companion. "'Zula, that smells so good! Did your uncle send you that? Can I try some? Wait, it looks hot. Do you have a second cup? No? Then I can use yours, right? I know I'm not supposed to use anything that you are, that's rude or frowned upon or something but I promise I won't tell if you don't." She's tempted to give the acrobat her cup if just to get the girl to be quiet - a splendid idea, and so she_

She is sixteen and sitting down to eat, the only one in the room. A special section of the palace has been afforded to her and she has all the benefits and comforts befitting a royal, save one - freedom. She reaches for a bowl of rice

_and scoops some onto her plate, deliberately avoiding the pleading grey eyes a few feet away from her. Of course Ty Lee's hungry, they've been outside all day - but if she raises her hand just right, she can turn the acrobat's head into a bowl. "Azula, why are you smirking? I'm starving, let me have some." Though she can deny anyone else in the world, she is strangely unable to refuse Ty Lee and hands over_

She is seventeen and taking a stroll through one of the palace courtyards. At first she was always accompanied, no less than six soldiers to follow before and six behind, but now she is largely left to her own devices. She's never attempted to escape - though now and again she entertains the thought, if only to see her brother's hair go greyer than it already is. She reaches a fountain

_to find her friend sitting there already, a full, secret smile on the acrobat's lips. They'll wrestle here in the late summer heat, but in time Azula's fingers will slip and find something far warmer than the noonday sun, just as she did yesterday and the day before that. Ty Lee's breath will hitch and her hips will_

She is eighteen and sitting on the palace roof, deliberately avoiding her brother's frustrated calls. It turns out that she is in fact useful as more than a trophy of battle and a warning against imperialism, able to negotiate and manipulate and lie her way through the complex labyrinth called diplomacy - though she could have told him that years ago; she's too good to be foiled by simpering middle-aged men who know only compromise and capitulation. The only greater satisfaction there is than outwitting an ambassador at his own game is annoying Zuko. That, and the sight of the capital city, majestic

_just like Ty Lee's spirited performance at the circus. She's actually gone through the trouble of getting the acrobat flowers so Ty Lee goes through the trouble of welcoming her properly, in private where_

She is nineteen and shrugging off a shirt that isn't hers, willing to deal with the outraged nobleman's complaints tomorrow if she can get in a good rest tonight. She arches her neck and feels her spine pop; it feels good - but not as good as the squirming girl that had been beneath her but a few moments prior. The nobleman will claim that she's stolen his daughter's virtue, she will comment with a sneer that she stole nothing - the girl consented. Zuko will sigh and continue to hope that perhaps one day, she will fall in love with one of them. That's a preposterous idea, because

_Ty Lee's fingers are knotted in her shirt, forcing them eye-to-eye. "Why won't you say it? Why won't you_

She is twenty, and she is too good for these visions that have plagued her since her defeat.

So, she stops having them.

*******

For her twenty-second birthday, Zuko gives her a present greater than the entire Fire Nation at the apex of its glory: the ability to come and go as she pleases.

Azula wanders the back streets of the capital, ever the strategist: she knows what she has been granted is not worth marching around and making a production of things; besides, what victories were ever won with a failed frontal assault? Better to watch and learn, observe the field and its players. The Fire Nation has moved on without her - a stranger in her own land. Better to study the unfamiliar people, the unfamiliar places, the unfamiliar customs and courtesies. Seven years might as well have been seven hundred.

Azula is so intent on not being detected that she fails to do the detecting, missing the most obvious of obstacles directly in her path - a child that stumbles into her legs, so small its head does not even reach Azula's knee. She looks down to regard the child with indifference, paying no mind to the indignant squeal as she prepares to move on.

Until she catches the child's irate grey eyes.

The child is a toddler; she cannot possibly be any older than two years. She picks herself up with a grunt and squints up at Azula, the remaining baby fat on her face making her cheeks puff up like an annoyed rabbiroo.

_She can hold my gaze,_ Azula thinks absently. _Just like her mother._

Well, maybe - maybe it isn't so. Azula lets out a breath she hadn't realized had been trapped in her lungs and glares back at the child. The toddler sways a little on her feet, an uncertain look crossing her chubby features - and then, obviously trained by her parents (_whoever they are_, Azula thinks, and not with just a little spite) the girl moves as if to offer a show of respect to her elder.

Azula, who has never prayed and meant it, prays now that a closed fist strikes an open palm in the standard salute for the Fire Nation, and she can move on with her wanderings and her life.

But irony would continue to have a hand in shaping the life of the former Crown Princess. The toddler spins about on one foot, momentarily forgetting about her audience of one, then drops to her knees and crouches in the dirt, unable to muffle a little giggle. Azula blinks once, long and slow

_The bluest of skies and the whitest of clouds, an auspicious start to the day. Too bad she had to wander for a good fifteen minutes through the circus, the performers too concerned with their acts or their beasts to be of any use. With growing impatience she finally finds her target - who, if lacking material wealth and stinks of fried food and unwashed animals, has at least maintained the ability to recognize people while balanced upside-down on her fingers. The acrobat is clearly delighted and whirls about before gracefully sinking to the ground, hands held out before her. When she rises the glow in her eyes threatens to overwhelm the sun that lies directly overhead; she rushes for Azula and_

The fretting figure of a mother strikes to an abrupt halt just beyond the edge of Azula's peripheral vision.

Azula regards the child for one more breath. She did not claw her way from the depths of depression and madness to be undone by a toddler and a ghost of her past life, lingering worriedly just behind her shoulder. Not here, not now.

She is long disappeared into the thinning crowds before the toddler can get to her feet.

*******

Azula is good. Too good. Entirely too good.

Too good for children, she'll hiss to herself later, jaw clenched so tight she can hear her molars creaking against one another. Too good for marriage. Too good for _her,_ too good for _that._

Too good to win. Too good to rule. Too good to love, and be loved.

And entirely too good at being the one left behind.


	24. liar's dice

notes: one day, I will be able to write a straight-up sex scene from beginning to end. today is not that day.

* * *

****

**liar's dice**

When your opponent's sittin' there holdin' all the aces, there's only one thing to do - kick over the table. / Dean Martin

**...**

Late summer is one of the most miserable times in the Fire Nation - or at least it feels that way to Ty Lee.

The unwelcome chill of winter long forgotten, it is easy to take the sweltering heat for granted. Day after day the sun rises and lingers, unresponsive, unwilling to sleep, baking alive the earth and its inhabitants. Temperatures shoot into the triple digits long before first light appears and then crawl down long after darkness settles over the land. And even worse was the humidity - one could not be outside for more than five minutes without looking as if they had weathered a monsoon. Changes of clothes were needed at least three times a day if one hoped to spend any decent amount of time outdoors.

There were remedies, of course - some opted to sleep the day away and conduct their affairs into the marginally cooler nighttime. Some left for the ocean, where the water and the winds tempered the ferocious bite of the sun. Some elected for private or public baths, but only those with large chunks of ice floating in them.

None of the above is available to Ty Lee so she opts for clothes that cut shorter and shorter - and notices Azula's gaze lingering longer and longer.

The acrobat cannot say what it is that loosens her tongue one day - perhaps it is her own inner fire, stoked to unknown heights by the thrice-damned heat. Perhaps it is the merciless sun beating down on her that feeds her rarely-seen but ever-present temper.

Or perhaps it is the fact that this summer is different - Ty Lee's nature is foreign and new. She knows what it is: she's started her monthly courses. She's filled out in ways she never thought possible. And Azula looks, but never comments. Never responds. All Ty Lee gets are fleeting glimpses of desire before Azula slams down the mask of disdain, and the tension between them has reached a fever pitch. The sun may fry them alive but hormones are a far deadlier inferno to be caught in.

She has been taunting the Princess for weeks, slowly exposing flesh inch by inch, day by day. She deliberately dangles herself just beneath Azula's nose, daring the Princess to answer - and for her part, Azula has been perfectly polite, not even flicking her tongue out to wet her lips every time Ty Lee stretches out like a feline in heat.

Too polite. Too proper. Combined with the hellish weather, it drives Ty Lee mad.

She wants Azula to respond. She wants Azula to do more than respond. If she must be tormented with heat then let it be from the proximity of bodies; if she must sweat then let it be with the weight of another atop her. She's seen stallion ostrich-horses during the rut; she knows the way their eyes roll, their necks arch, the way foam gathers at the corners of their mouths as their teeth gnash. She wants Azula's nostrils to flare when she walks by, she wants Azula chomping down on empty air when she presses close.

She's never had thoughts like these before.

All Ty Lee knows is that they are both lying under a tree and it is so unbearably hot that it makes her want to crawl out of her skin. Azula's eyes are on her and she thinks the Princess might be moved to action, so she cants a leg to one side, exposing the stretch of her inner thigh and the pull of the muscle beneath it. Her shorts ride up and she hopes the Princess can smell that she wears nothing underneath.

Azula yawns.

"Why do you keep looking at me? Do you like my clothes?" The acrobat raises a hand and aggressively draws a line down her abdomen, starting from her solar plexus and ending beneath her navel, fingernails nipping at the hemline of her shorts. Beads of sweat trail down the ravine she's made, her bare flesh tingling with excitement and defiance. There is a bite to her voice; the baby moose-lion finally finding its fangs. She's never spoken to the Princess quite like this.

Then again, she's never wanted the Princess to want her quite like this.

However long her gaze might linger, however ignorant of Ty Lee's intentions she acts, Azula never misses a beat. "I was just wondering if I need to loan you money so you can buy the rest of your outfit."

That does it.

The acrobat sits up, ignoring the stifling air and her body's whine at moving so suddenly. She swings a leg up and over and is abruptly astride Azula, her thighs on either side of the firebender's hips. Her clothes are plastered to her body, highlighting the newly-grown curves of her waist, her breasts.

And, she notes with a ferocious satisfaction, the Princess' eyes would have boiled in her skull if her gaze were any more intense.

"All you do is look," the acrobat snarls, her words sizzling in the disgustingly thick air. "Look on, your _highness_, and I'll try to make amends for my appearance."

It is the closest she has ever come to outright challenging Azula. But Ty Lee outdoes herself in the next breath as she peels off the tiny scrap of clothing that constitutes her top; fabric with more surface area is easily found on a bandage. The acrobat momentarily considers depositing her shirt on Azula's face before deciding she isn't quite that bold and the Princess isn't quite that polite. She'll settle for tossing it to the side, then - and still Azula does nothing, looking as impassive as if she were sitting in on one of her father's war councils than watching her best friend strip on top of her.

Ty Lee goes berserk.

"What is _wrong_ with you? You've been undressing me with your eyes for weeks - _weeks _- and when I actually bother going through with it you just sit there and look at me like... like I'm some bowl of rice or something. No, forget that- you'd look at a bowl of rice with more hunger than you're giving me right now! Even if you didn't find me attractive - which I know you do because I can feel your eyes on me like you wish your hands could be - you'd think that you would at least express some kind of—"

"By Agni's eternal flame, calm down before you give yourself an aneurysm."

Ty Lee's mouth literally hangs open as Mai steps out from behind the tree, looking more dour than normal - if such a thing were possible. Rebellious in her own way, she's not shed the dark-colored, heavy layers of clothing for anything more comfortable or breathable and she's clearly suffering for it. Kneeling down beside Azula's head, Mai turns to address the Princess, a note of complaint in her voice: "I don't think that counts. You baited her."

Azula lifts one shoulder in a shrug, or at least does the best she can lying down with the weight of the acrobat on her midsection. "She still broke first."

"Fine. Let that be a lesson to me to take a bet on anything regarding Ty Lee's powers of self-control." There is a quick exchange of money before Mai walks off, a bit more hurry in her step than usual.

"You... you _used_ me!" Ty Lee's too offended to cry, though she can feel the tears building behind her eyes. She grabs her shirt and-

"So you're saying you don't have a bet with Zuko on if you could properly seduce me before summer's over?"

"I..."

"Indeed." Azula sits up and places her hands on the acrobat's waist, the pads of her thumbs caressing the curves of Ty Lee's hipbones. Her tongue extends to catch a few beads of sweat that lie in the dip of Ty Lee's collarbone. The acrobat's eyelids flicker and her breath stutters in her throat. Distantly, she notices that Azula has taken her shirt out of her hands and has put it aside - or reduced it to ashes - but she's far more focused on the sting-caress of her teeth on Azula's jugular.

_Why the change of heart?_ Ty Lee manages to think, dizzy with arousal. _Is it because she won her bet?_ Azula, who seems to have the annoying habit of anticipating Ty Lee's thoughts, gives her this simple explanation before her hands disappear from view and Ty Lee decides that the best course of action is to simply stop thinking:

"You know I hate it when Zuko wins."


	25. poetry i

notes: whoooo wants some poetry to hold them over until I post again on Valentine's Day?

*crickets*

well, I'm giving you some anyway, so there. I won't even tell if you pass one of these off as yours and give it to your intended Valentine. :I you better message me and let me know if it worked.

also, I have no idea if it's Ty Lee or Azula speaking in these poems, or if they change. I like to think they work with either girl at different times.

* * *

**poetry i** – ask her if she wants to stay awhile

**...**

**and whatever pain may come**  
(pseudo-terzanelle on Distance)

The electrical edges of your smile  
seep into the cracks of my heart; know this:  
It may not happen for a long, long while.

Down through my veins and arteries, the twists  
and folds and turns of each muscle layer  
(Like the sheets on your bed, this

the only thing I know, your favor  
the only thing I desire.) The chains  
of molecules running through each layer

of tissue become me. I plod on dumbly, maimed  
by you; (heart and soul) - in thought and in word,  
in what I have done and what I have failed to do. (Chains

of broken syllables splash across your tongue,  
and mine moves in places secret and unspoken.)  
I surrender - the victory yours, the battle won;

(I am) Overcome, my will (broken)  
The electrical edges of your smile  
say the things best left unspoken:  
It may not happen for a long, long while.

* this is more of a bastard child between a sestina and a terzanelle.

**...**

**the long walk**  
(pseudo-terzanelle on Time)

Give me your word, my darling, and I'll endeavor-  
I'll sing your body electric, love you down all the days  
Love me and I'll give you forever, forever, forever

You'll rise to my touch, burn as my fingers have their way  
my lips at your throat with your moans in my mouth  
I'll sing your body electric, love you down all the days

I'll love you better than breath, and should you ever doubt  
all you'll have to do is reach for me, instantly you'll find  
my lips at your throat with your moans in my mouth

All I am wrapped around you, body and soul thus entwined  
should you ever forget, should distance ever be too great  
all you'll have to do is reach for me, instantly you'll find

that I lie near you, with you, in you, and quietly wait  
for the perfect moment to kiss you and swear to you this:  
should you ever forget, should distance ever be too great

Remember my arms around you and that I only exist  
to sing your body electric, love you down all the days;  
for the perfect moment to kiss you and swear to you this:  
Love me and I'll give you forever, forever, forever.

* screwed the rhyme scheme of this one up. oh well!

**...**

**anything goes in this cosmic dare  
anything goes, so take care**  
(terzanelle on Addiction)

She spoke in a voice that disrupted the sky  
and I was disturbed, damned - I let my heart fall;  
the end of my world breaking so bright in your eyes.

A mere eternity of seconds and she had me in thrall,  
in chains, in her: her lightning-touch so soft and new  
and I was disturbed, damned - I let my heart fall

past the ends of reality the devil dare not pursue;  
into the weight of life in her kiss. I found forever  
in chains; her lightning-touch so soft and new

and the electric arc of her throat, her back: I've never  
fallen so far so fast - my heart and soul blindly fly  
into the weight of life in her kiss. I found forever.

She burned bone-cold and hurt so good I couldn't deny  
and she said, Hold on Lover, what do you see?  
Fallen so far so fast - my heart and soul blindly fly

when I touch and I touch her and she melts into me  
She spoke in a voice that disrupted the sky  
and she said, Hold on Lover, what do you see?  
The end of my world breaking so bright in your eyes.

* first line whored from Rob Pattinson's "Let Me Sign."  
* I think this is the first terzanelle that's true to the original rhyme scheme. HALLELUJAH


End file.
